Spectrally-selective dynamic radiative thermoregulation via phase engineering

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel spectrally-selective dynamic radiative thermoregulation device using phase engineering of MIT materials with a dielectric cap, enabling tunable thermal emission for energy-efficient temperature control.

Contribution

The authors introduce a new design strategy employing a dielectric cap to transform broadband MIT materials into spectrally selective, tunable thermal emitters with wide-angle operation.

Findings

Achieved electrically tunable thermal emittance from 0.2 to 0.9

Demonstrated operation in the atmospheric transparency window (8-13 μm)

Extended the approach to multispectral electrochromic windows

Abstract

Maintaining comfortable temperatures for buildings, humans, and devices consumes a substantial portion of global energy, underscoring the urgent need for energy-efficient thermoregulation technologies. Dynamic radiative thermal emitters that can switch between passive cooling and heating modes offer a promising solution, but most existing devices exhibit broadband optical responses, resulting in unwanted parasitic heat exchange and limited performance. Here, we introduce an elegant strategy that uses a dielectric cap to transform broadband metal-insulator transition (MIT) materials into spectrally selective dynamic emitters. This design creates a highly tunable Fabry-Perot cavity, enabling a tailored thermal emission spectrum by engineering the reflected-wave phase profile. Our Fresnel-formalism-based phasor diagram analysis reveals two key routes for realizing high spectral selectivity: a high-index dielectric cap and a low-loss metallic MIT state, which are further validated by Bayesian optimization. Following this principle, we demonstrated a wide-angle spectrally-selective thermoregulator operating in the atmospheric transparency window (8-13 um), where the thermal emittance can be electrically tuned from about 0.2 to 0.9 through reversible copper electrodeposition on a germanium cavity. Furthermore, this strategy can be extended to multispectral electrochromic windows, enabling switching between solar heating and spectrally-selective radiative cooling. Our work establishes a versatile and generalizable paradigm for spectral engineering of dynamic thermal emitters, opening opportunities in energy-efficient buildings, wearable thermal comfort, spacecraft thermoregulation, and multispectral camouflage.