NOVELTY - A surface coating material for solar collector installations, particularly of the linear parabolic mirror type, comprises a multilayer structure including a lower layer (1) of infrared reflecting metal, and upper layer (4) of reflection preventing material, between which at least one layer of composite ceramic-metal or CERMET material is sandwiched.    USE - The surface coating material is used for tubes of solar collector installations, particularly of the linear parabolic mirror type (claimed). The solar installation is used for power production.    ADVANTAGE - The surface coating material has good mechanical, structural stability in the whole operating temperature range of use, particularly 300-580degreesC. It provides a high absorbance in the whole spectrum of the solar radiation, and low emissivity at the maximum operating temperature. It can be manufactured using high deposition rate.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - A surface coating material for solar collector installations, particularly of the linear parabolic mirror type, comprises a multilayer structure including a lower layer (1) of infrared reflecting metal, and upper layer (4) of reflection preventing material, between which at least one layer of composite ceramic-metal or CERMET material is sandwiched. The metal component is titanium nitride (TiNx) or zirconium nitride (ZrNx) or hafnium nitride (HfNx), and the ceramic component is aluminum nitride (AlN).    An INDEPENDENT CLAIM is also included for manufacturing a solar coating material for collectors of solar installations, comprising:    (A) providing a lower layer of reflecting metal which consists of tungsten manufactured by direct current (DC) sputtering technique or stoichiometric zirconium nitride manufactured by reactive DC sputtering;    (B) providing an intermediate "graded" CERMET layer (23) or two intermediate, homogeneous overlapped CERMET layers which are manufactured by reactive DC co-sputtering technique in the presence of nitrogen as reactive gas mixed with argon as sputtering gas from two metal targets, the first of which consists of aluminum, and the second of titanium or zirconium or hafnium;    (C) providing an upper layer of reflection preventing ceramic consisting of aluminum nitride manufactured by reactive sputtering technique from an aluminum target in the presence of nitrogen as reactive gas mixed with argon as sputtering gas, or alumina manufactured by reactive sputtering technique from an aluminum target in the presence of oxygen as reactive gas mixed with argon as sputtering gas.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows the structure of a coating in which only one CERMET layer is sandwiched between the upper and lower layers.    Lower layer (1)    Upper layer (4)    Intermediate layer (23)