Self-adaptive radiative cooling and solar heating based on a compound metasurface

The energy consumption of outdoor structures, such as automobiles and buildings, has significantly contributed to the problem of energy shortage and global warming. Photonic thermal management plays a crucial role in the thermal behavior of outdoor energy consumption by the functions of solar heating and radiative cooling. Here, we provide a conceptive design of self-adaptive photonic thermal management by tunable radiative cooling and solar heating, which are determined by the absorption spectra of the atmospheric window range and solar energy. These absorption spectra can be tuned by a large cross resonator and a small cross resonator independently, while the compound metasurface of the large and small cross resonators can realize self-adaptive radiative cooling and solar heating in one system. The result shows that the compound metasurface can remain cool at 35 °C and remain warm at 25 °C. These results lead to better designs by photonic thermal management for an outdoor structure.