Acktar™ specializes in ultra-black, light absorbing coatings and foils, which are qualified for space and in use in numerous satellite-borne instruments. Main application fields are straylight suppression, laser power absorption and high-emissivity coatings in the field of photonics.

Acktar's inorganic coatings are fabricated using Acktar proprietary vacuum deposition technology. A high specific surface area coating is created with a tightly controlled morphology to produce a low reflectance level.

The coating thickness is a few microns (typically 3-5 μm) and its density is typically ~1.8 g/cm³. The deposition process is carried out at wide range of temperatures depending on the substrate.

By controlling the composition and morphology of the layer microstructure, it can be tailored to achieve desired levels of absorption or reflectance over a wide range of wavelengths (EUV-UV, VIS, NIR-FIR). The deep black foils and coatings can be applied to almost any surface (metal, glass, silicon, ceramic, plastic) - for example for stray light optimization, laser absorption, improvement of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and high-emissivity coating in technical optics.

Target industries include:

• aerospace
• laser technology
• technical optics
• sensor technology
• measurement technology
• medical technology and diagnostics
• biotechnology and industrial image processing

Acktar mission highlights

All of the missions in the list below utilized one or more Acktar products and services to improve performance and progress technology development:

• Chandrayyan-2 - ISRO’s 2nd lunar exploration mission, involving an orbiter, lander, and rover. The mission involved mapping and studying the lunar surface as well as detecting water ice.
• Onboard the ISS - Acktar has contributed coatings to the International Space Station, supporting it’s critical research and technology development work.
• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - an orbiting infrared observatory building on the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST is a 6200 kg system designed to extend our understanding of the universe in a wide variety of areas.
• BepiColombo - a 2-satellite mission to Mercury, to study the planet's geology, exosphere, magnetosphere and more.
• Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) - an exploration mission to perform scientific research of the planet and develop new interplanetary technologies. This was both India’s and Asia’s first interplanetary mission.
• CHIME: Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment - a 2-satellite mission with the objective of providing hyperspectral images to map the changes in land cover and help provide sustainable farming techniques.
• Sentinel 2A, 2B and 5 - a multi-instrument, multi-satellite mission program launched to perform adavanced imaging of Earth for land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring.
• Arctic Weather Satellite - an ESA mission to improve global weather forecasting capabilities.
• JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) - an ESA-led mission to make a detailed study of Jupiter, Europe, Ganymede, and Callisto - with a suite of observation instruments.
• Euclid - an ESA mission consisting of a wide-angle space telescope, operating at the Sun-Earth second Lagrange point L2, and built to improve humanity's understanding of dark matter, dark energy, and gravity.
• FLEX - a fluorescence imaging satellite designed to join the orbit of Sentinel-3 and utilize the combined observation capabilities to map global photosynthetic activity, to improve global vegetation detection.
• Cheops (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) - the first dedicated mission with the objective of studying nearby, and bright, stars that host exoplanets. The mission was led by ESA and utilized a spacecraft built by Airbus Defense and Space, Spain.
• DESIS - a hyperspectral imaging spectrometer operating onboard the ISS and designed to collect accurate data on the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land surface across a wide spectral range.
• Mars Sample Return (MSR) - an ambitious, multi-mission campaign to deploy robotic systems to Mars and return them to Earth. The objective is to collect samples of Martian rocks, soils and atmosphere for detailed physical and chemical analysis.
• CANX-2 (Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment) - an Earth atmospheric observation mission designed to both perform measurements and explore the performance of technologies in space.