Pigment

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a pigment, long required in the field of automotive finishing paint, which produces strong interference color and which is excellent in coloring power and hiding power.
The pigment of the present invention comprises: a substrate; a metallic layer formed on at least one surface of the substrate and imparting metallic luster; and a transparent inorganic compound layer formed on surfaces of the substrate and the metallic layer, whereby the pigment produces color by light interference of a ray reflected on a surface of the transparent inorganic compound layer and a ray passed through the transparent inorganic compound layer and reflected on a surface of the metallic layer.
The substrate according to the present invention has a powder or scaly shape.
The scaly shape is particularly preferred for the substrate, because the scaly-shape substrate orients in multi-layers in a wet paint film, and the resulting paint film can have excellent hiding power and flip-flop characteristic.
The flip-flop characteristic means the shift in reflection color depending on angle of incidence and angle of observation.
The substrate comprises any suitable material conventionally used in this art including natural mica, synthetic mica, glass flakes and molybdenum disulfide.
Natural mica and synthetic mica are particularly preferred as the substrate.
The substrate is preferably about 0.
5-2 .
mu.
m in thickness and 50 .
mu.
m or less in mean particle diameter.
The metallic layer is formed on at least one surface of the substrate and imparting matallic luster.
The metallic layer can be formed on only a part of the surface of the substrate, but preferably formed on the entire surface of the substrate.
The metallic layer almost completely reflects light which passed through the transparent inorganic compound layer, thereby producing strong interference color.
The metallic layer comprises a metal such as silver, gold, copper, palladium, nickel and cobalt, or an alloy such as an Ni-P alloy, an Ni-B alloy, an Ni-Co-P alloy, an Ni-W-P alloy, an Ag-Au alloy and a Co-P alloy