Smart camouflage film compatible with visible-infrared stealth and thermal dissipation

Abstract

The development of visible-infrared combined detection technology necessitates the compatibility of stealth film with multiband stealth. In this work, we proposed a smart camouflage film that is compatible with both visible-infrared stealth and thermal dissipation. The smart camouflage film is a planar photonic multilayer structure composed of a VO₂-based intelligent radiator and stacked Ge/BaF₂ spectrally-selective filter. It has been demonstrated that such a film has the capacity to automatically switch the emittance in a large scale outside the atmospheric window, depending on the temperature. This is attributable to the Fabry-Perot resonance, which has an emittance tunability of 0.900. In the SWIR, MWIR, and LWIR bands, the proposed film maintains low emittance of 0.036, 0.062, and 0.101, respectively, attributable to the multiple reflection of the stack structure. A high absorptance of 0.739 in the VIS-NIR band is also obtained, which can be attributed to the absorption of the Ge layer. The spectrally-selective properties of absorption and emission remain excellent even at large incident angles. The calculations of emission power, infrared signal intensity reduction, and radiation temperature demonstrate the excellent thermal control and stealth properties of the smart camouflage film. The proposed film demonstrates the great potential to accelerate the development and application of multiband camouflage film.