Multispectral camouflage and radiative cooling using dynamically tunable metasurface

Abstract

With the increasing demand for privacy, multispectral camouflage devices that utilize metasurface designs in combination with mature detection technologies have become effective. However, these early designs face challenges in realizing multispectral camouflage with a single metasurface and restricted modes. Therefore, this paper proposes a dynamically tunable metasurface. The metasurface consists of gold (Au), antimony selenide (Sb₂Se₃), and aluminum (Al), which enables radiative cooling, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and infrared camouflage. In the amorphous phase of Sb₂Se₃, the thermal radiation reduction rate in the mid wave infrared range (MWIR) is up to 98.2%. The echo signal reduction rate for the 1064 nm LiDAR can reach 96.3%. In the crystalline phase of Sb₂Se₃, the highest cooling power is 65.5 Wm^-2. Hence the metasurface can reduce the surface temperature and achieve efficient infrared camouflage. This metasurface design provides a new strategy for making devices compatible with multispectral camouflage and radiative cooling.