German invents radar-camouflaging paint

A German inventor has created a radar-evading camouflage paint in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates. An institute back in Germany tested the paint and discovered — to everyone’s surprise — that it works. The German defense industry is starting to take an interest. Werner Nickel came to the Gulf desert because he had bred a worm the excrement of which made it possible to grow radishes in the dry desert sand. The sheikhs were impressed with the inventor and the fact that his invention could put their otherwise useless land to use. Nickel, 67, a wheelchair-bound amateur inventor from Berlin, moved to the UAE to run his new project. Der Spiegel’s Bernahrd Zand writes that the project seemed promising at first, as cucumbers, radishes, and beans thrived on Nickel’s test fields on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. The project, however, also consumed vast numbers of worms — 3,000 per square meter, to be exact — which eventually made the project too costly for its sponsors. Nickel shifted gears and decided to concoct a paint to shield tanks, ships, and aircraft from radar detection in much the same way that Stealth bombers are invisible. Nickel already had a name for his miracle paint: AR 1. After spending thousands and thousands hours in the laboratory, he finally mixed the paint for which he was looking. He sent a can of it to Helmut Essen, a radiation physicist who runs the radar technology department at the Research Establishment for Applied Science (FGAN) near Bonn. Essen examined Nickel’s paint and was surprised to learn that it works “and for all militarily relevant frequencies,” he says.

When a house, a ship, or a car that would usually light up on a radar screen is coated with AR 1, it disappears almost completely into the darkness. Essen has not been able to figure out why this happens. It might be because the paint is a type of Jaumann absorber, which reflects incoming radar waves in such a way that they cancel each other out. Or it could have something to do with microscopically minute magnetic particles that absorb the radiation’s energy. Essen considers the fact that Nickel concocted the paint out in the desert — with almost no research resources at his disposal — “almost unbelievable.” Yet, each sample Essen has received from Nickel over the years works a little better than the last one.