Inverse design multilayers for infrared camouflage with thermal management

Infrared camouflage is an effective technique to avoid many kinds of target detection by detectors in the infrared band. For a high-temperature environment, thermal management of selective emission is crucial to dissipate heat in the non-atmospheric window (5–8 μm). However, it still remains challenges for balancing infrared camouflage and thermal management. Here, we theoretically demonstrate inverse design multilayers for infrared camouflage with thermal management. Combining the ideal emission spectrum and genetic algorithm (GA), a multilayer film structure (MFS) containing 9 layers of four materials (SiO₂, Ge, ZnS and Au) has been designed. The results reveal the high compatible efficiency (ε_eff=81%) among thermal camouflage, mid-infrared laser camouflage and thermal management. Therefore, the proposed multilayers are attractive as basic building block of selective emitter, for the development of advanced infrared materials such as radiative cooling, infrared camouflage and thermal emission.