Bio-inspired micropatterned thermochromic hydrogel for concurrent smart solar transmission and rapid visible-light stealth at all-working temperatures

Huaxu Liang, Xinping Zhang, Fuqiang Wang*, Chunzhe Li, Weizhe Yuan, Weifeng Meng, Ziming Cheng, Yan Dong, Xuhang Shi, Yuying Yan, Hongliang Yi, Yong Shuai, Yi Long*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Thermochromic hydrogels exhibit a smart capacity for regulating solar spectrum transmission, enabling automatically change their transmissivity in response to the ambient temperature change. This has great importance for energy conservation purposes. Military and civilian emergency thermochromic applications require rapid visible-light stealth (VLS); however, concurrent smart solar transmission and rapid VLS is yet to be realized. Inspired by squid-skin, we propose a micropatterned thermochromic hydrogel (MTH) to realize the concurrent control of smart solar transmittance and rapid VLS at all-working temperatures. The MTH possesses two optical regulation mechanisms: optical property regulation and optical scattering, controlled by temperature and pressure, respectively. The introduced surface micropattern strategy can arbitrarily switch between normal and diffuse transmission, and the VLS response time is within 1 s compared with previous ~180 s. The MTH also has a high solar-transmission regulation range of 61%. Further, the MTH preparation method is scalable and cost-effective. This novel regulation mechanism opens a new pathway towards applications with multifunctional optical requirements.
Original languageEnglish
Article number202
JournalLight: Science & Applications
Volume13
Issue number1
Number of pages11
ISSN2095-5545
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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