# Programmable Interface Atomic Rearrangement for Spatiotemporal Thermal Radiation Tailoring

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to control thermal radiation dynamically over time and space using atomic rearrangement, enabling advanced photonic applications.

## Contribution

The study presents a novel spatiotemporal modulation strategy using interface atomic rearrangement for continuous thermal radiation control.

## Key findings

- The ARM platform achieves high amplitude spectral modulation in both 3- to 5-μm and 8- to 14-μm bands.
- The method enables rich temporal domain variations for tailored infrared emissivity and encryption.
- A unified framework for atomic-scale control of thermal radiation is established.

## Abstract

The modulation of thermal radiation is essential for advanced photonic applications, offering a novel perspective for information carriers. However, current carriers are limited to a few discrete radiation states at isolated time points and cannot capture the entire dynamic process along the full temporal axis, resulting in substantial information loss. Here, we propose and experimentally validate a novel spatiotemporal modulation strategy that dynamically tailors emissivity across the entire temporal domain, where gentle and uniform modulation of atomic configurations enables the creation of entirely novel permittivity libraries. To realize flexible thermal radiation tailoring, we utilize an Ag–In3SbTe2 (IST) interface atomic rearrangement metamaterial (ARM). As a dynamic optical control platform, ARM exhibits continuous spectral modulation with remarkably high amplitudes (64.74% in the 3- to 5-μm band and 73.94% in the 8- to 14-μm band), together with rich variations across the temporal domain to realize tailored infrared emissivity and infrared information encryption. This work establishes a unified framework for continuous, atomic-scale spatiotemporal control of thermal radiation, opening new pathways for spectral modulation and photonic information regulation in the time domain.