Mid-infrared adaptive thermal camouflage using a phase-change material coupled dielectric nanoantenna
Ebru Buhara, Amir Ghobadi, Bahram Khalichi, Hasan Koçer, Ekmel Özbay
Abstract
Abstract Recently, camouflage technology has attracted researchers’ attention in a large variety of thermal applications. As a special phase change material (PCM), vanadium dioxide (VO 2 ) is an excellent candidate for the studies conducted on thermal camouflage technology. VO 2 has a transition from the insulator phase to the metal phase with the increase of the temperature. With regards to this unique feature, VO 2 can contribute dynamic properties to the camouflage design. In this paper, a PCM–dielectric based metamaterial mid-infrared adaptive thermal camouflage nanoantenna is designed to perfectly mimic the atmospheric windows. The adaptive property of the proposed structure is obtained by using an ultrathin VO 2 interlayer embedded within the grating. The spectral responses of the structure are computed using the finite difference time domain method, and the invisibility of the structure is proved using power calculations in the different mid-infrared regions.