Multispectral camouflage for infrared, visible, lasers and microwave with radiative cooling

Interminable surveillance and reconnaissance through various sophisticated multispectral detectors present threats to military equipment and manpower. However, a combination of detectors operating in different wavelength bands (from hundreds of nanometers to centimeters) and based on different principles raises challenges to the conventional single-band camouflage devices. In this paper, multispectral camouflage is demonstrated for the visible, mid-infrared (MIR, 3–5 and 8–14 µm), lasers (1.55 and 10.6 µm) and microwave (8–12 GHz) bands with simultaneous efficient radiative cooling in the non-atmospheric window (5–8 µm). The device for multispectral camouflage consists of a ZnS/Ge multilayer for wavelength selective emission and a Cu-ITO-Cu metasurface for microwave absorption. In comparison with conventional broadband low emittance material (Cr), the IR camouflage performance of this device manifests 8.4/5.9 °C reduction of inner/surface temperature, and 53.4/13.0% IR signal decrease in mid/long wavelength IR bands, at 2500 W m−2 input power density. Furthermore, we reveal that the natural convection in the atmosphere can be enhanced by radiation in the non-atmospheric window, which increases the total cooling power from 136 W m−2 to 252 W m−2 at 150 °C surface temperature. This work may introduce the opportunities for multispectral manipulation, infrared signal processing, thermal management, and energy-efficient applications.

Huanzheng Zhu, Qiang Li, Chenning Tao, Yu Hong, Ziquan Xu, Weidong Shen, Sandeep Kaur, Pintu Ghosh, Min Qiu