An ultrathin coating developed by University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers upends a ubiquitous physics phenomenon of materials related to thermal radiation: The hotter an object gets, the brighter it glows.
The new coating — engineered from samarium nickel oxide, a unique tunable material — employs a bit of temperature trickery.
“This is the first time temperature and thermal light emission have been decoupled in a solid object. We built a coating that ‘breaks’ the relationship between temperature and thermal radiation in a very particular way,” says Mikhail Kats, a UW–Madison professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Essentially, there is a temperature range within which the power of the thermal radiation emitted by our coating stays the same.”
Currently, that temperature range is fairly small, between approximately 105 and 135 degrees Celsius. With further development, however, Kats says the coating could have applications in heat transfer, camouflage and, as infrared cameras become widely available to consumers, even in clothing to protect people’s personal privacy.
Read the full article at: https://www.engr.wisc.edu/optical-illusion-new-coating-looks-cool-even-not/