Tunable Mid-infrared Selective Emitter with Thermal Management for Infrared Camouflage

Thermal camouflage technology is playing an increasingly significant role in modern military warfare with advances in infrared (IR) detection technology. However, there are still some challenges in the development of tunable emitters with IR camouflage and thermal management properties. This work reports a tunable infrared selective emitter (TISE) comprised of a cylindrical structure with multilayer Al and Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST). The TISE can attain low emissivity in the atmospheric window and broadband high emissivity in the non-atmospheric window. It exhibits excellent IR camouflage and thermal management properties. It is possible to switch between the IR "camouflage" and "non-camouflage" states by varying the crystallization fraction of GST. It also has excellent insensitivity to obliquely incident light. The TISE is expected to support further exploration in the fields of IR camouflage, thermal imaging, and plasmonic metamaterial applications.