Metasurfaces Leveraging Solar Energy for Icephobicity

TL;DR

This paper introduces plasmonic metasurfaces with hybrid coatings that harness solar energy for passive icephobicity, offering an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional de-icing methods.

Contribution

It presents a novel design of transparent, solar-absorbing metasurfaces with nano-engineered coatings for effective, passive ice prevention and removal, reducing reliance on energy-intensive techniques.

Findings

Achieves >10°C temperature increase at the surface using solar absorption.

Delays ice formation and reduces ice adhesion significantly.

Provides a tunable balance between transparency and absorption.

Abstract

Inhibiting ice accumulation on surfaces is an energy-intensive task and is of significant importance in nature and technology where it has found applications in windshields, automobiles, aviation, renewable energy generation, and infrastructure. Existing methods rely on on-site electrical heat generation, chemicals, or mechanical removal, with drawbacks ranging from financial costs to disruptive technical interventions and environmental incompatibility. Here we focus on applications where surface transparency is desirable and propose metasurfaces with embedded plasmonically enhanced light absorption heating, using ultra-thin hybrid metal-dielectric coatings, as a passive, viable approach for de-icing and anti-icing, in which the sole heat source is renewable solar energy. The balancing of transparency and absorption is achieved with rationally nano-engineered coatings consisting of gold nanoparticle inclusions in a dielectric (titanium dioxide), concentrating broadband absorbed solar energy into a small volume. This causes a > 10 {\deg}C temperature increase with respect to ambient at the air-solid interface, where ice is most likely to form, delaying freezing, reducing ice adhesion, when it occurs, to negligible levels (de-icing) and inhibiting frost formation (anti-icing). Our results illustrate an effective unexplored pathway towards environmentally compatible, solar-energy-driven icephobicity, enabled by respectively tailored plasmonic metasurfaces, with the ability to design the balance of transparency and light absorption.