Experimental Demonstration of Thermal Chameleonlike Rotators with Transformation-Invariant Metamaterials
Fubao Yang, Boyan Tian, Liujun Xu, Jiping Huang
Abstract
Intelligent metamaterials have aroused intensive research interest due to their adaptive responses to environmental changes. However, existing transformation-thermotics-based metamaterials have almost no intelligence because their parameters are crucially dependent on environmental parameters. Therefore, once the environment changes, these thermal metamaterials can no longer work, which limits practical applications. To solve the problem, we propose a mechanism for intelligent thermal metamaterials based on transformation-invariant metamaterials. As an application, we design intelligent thermal rotators, which can guide the direction of heat flux with different environmental parameters. Since the adaptive behavior is similar to chameleons, the present rotators are also called chameleonlike rotators. We further perform finite-element simulations and laboratory experiments to validate the scheme, and the chameleonlike behavior is clearly demonstrated. These results have potential applications for the implementation of adaptive and adjustable thermal metamaterials. Similar behaviors can also be expected in other fields like hydrodynamics.