A plumbing fixture having a multi-color appearance includes a first portion including a first finish having a first appearance and a second portion including a second portion having a second appearance that differs from the first appearance. The plumbing fixture further includes a transition region between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the appearance of the third region is graduated from the first appearance to the second appearance between a first end of the transition region adjacent the first portion and a second end of the transition region adjacent the second portion. The plumbing fixture has an ombre appearance as a result of the graduated transition between the first portion and the second portion.

A black ceramic composite coating is presented. The ceramic composite coating comprises a ceramic matrix having embedded therein carbide nanoparticles (in particular metal carbide nanoparticles) and/or metal-carbon composite nanoparticles (with separate metal and carbon phases) embedded therein. The carbide nanoparticles are metastable and the metal-carbon composite nanoparticles are decay products of the metastable carbide nanoparticles. A further aspect of the invention relates to producing such a ceramic composite coating.

The present invention relates generally to a coated jewelry article or a coated component of a jewelry article, comprising a jewelry article or a component of a jewelry article, a first metallic coating, and a second metallic coating.

A method of forming a diamond composite body and the diamond composite body. A first single crystal diamond body is provided, which contains nitrogen and has a uniform strain such that over an area of at least 11 mm, at least 90 percent of points display a modulus of strain-induced shift of NV resonance of less than 200 kHz, wherein each point in the area is a resolved region of 50 m.sup.2. The first single crystal diamond body is treated to convert at least some of the nitrogen to form at least 0.3 ppm nitrogen-vacancy, NV.sup., centres. A CVD process is used to grow a second single crystal diamond body on a surface of the first single crystal diamond body. The second single crystal diamond body has an NV concentration less than or equal to 10 times lower than the NV.sup. concentration in the first single crystal diamond body.

A coating that resists wear; first, at least one DLC layer with a high degree of hardness is applied to a component and then a gradient layer, whose density decreases in the direction toward the surface, is applied to this DLC layer. By means of the hardness progression that this produces in the gradient layer, the gradient layer functions as a run-in layer in applications with sliding surfaces.

A method of forming a coating for deposition to non-metallic surfaces comprises the steps of applying (120) a semiconductor material to a substrate to form a semiconductor material layer and simultaneously or subsequently applying (140) metallic material or additional semiconductor material. The metallic material or additional semiconductor material is introduced into the semiconductor material layer in a targeted manner to tailor the optical properties of the coating.

A plumbing fixture having a multi-color appearance includes a first portion including a first finish having a first appearance and a second portion including a second portion having a second appearance that differs from the first appearance. The plumbing fixture further includes a transition region between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the appearance of the third region is graduated from the first appearance to the second appearance between a first end of the transition region adjacent the first portion and a second end of the transition region adjacent the second portion. The plumbing fixture has an ombre appearance as a result of the graduated transition between the first portion and the second portion.

The present disclosure relates to a coating for a substrate, the coating comprising: a first vapor phase deposition layer for depositing on the substrate, wherein the first vapor phase deposition layer reflects light having a first color; and a second vapor phase deposition layer deposited on the first vapor phase deposition layer, wherein the second vapor phase deposition layer reflects light having a second color different from the first color; wherein a thickness of the second vapor phase deposition layer is adjusted such that the coating reflects light having a third color different from the first color and the second color.