title: Fast Adaptive Thermal Camouflage Based on Flexible VO₂/Graphene/CNT Thin Films.
abstract: Adaptive camouflage in thermal imaging, a form of cloaking technology capable of blending naturally into the surrounding environment, has been a great challenge in the past decades. Emissivity engineering for thermal camouflage is regarded as a more promising way compared to merely temperature controlling that has to dissipate a large amount of excessive heat. However, practical devices with an active modulation of emissivity have yet to be well explored. In this letter we demonstrate an active cloaking device capable of efficient thermal radiance control, which consists of a vanadium dioxide (VO2) layer, with a negative differential thermal emissivity, coated on a graphene/carbon nanotube (CNT) thin film. A slight joule heating drastically changes the emissivity of the device, achieving rapid switchable thermal camouflage with a low power consumption and excellent reliability. It is believed that this device will find wide applications not only in artificial systems for infrared camouflage or cloaking but also in energy-saving smart windows and thermo-optical modulators.
authors.affiliation: Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology , Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: He
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology , Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: Junku
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology , Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology , Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Shoushan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Kaili
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jiang
keywords: Vanadium dioxide; carbon nanotube; graphene; infrared; thermal camouflage