Transparent spacecraft smart thermal control device based on VO2 and hyperbolic metamaterials

Abstract

Effective spacecraft thermal control technologies are essential to avoid undesirable effects caused by extreme thermal conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate a transparent smart radiation device (TSRD) based on vanadium dioxide (VO₂) and a hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) structure. Using the topological transition property of HMM, high transmission in the visible band and high reflection in the infrared can be achieved simultaneously. The variable emission essentially originates from the phase change material VO₂ film. Due to the high reflection of HMM in the infrared band, it can form Fabry–Pérot (FP) resonance with the VO₂ film after adding the dielectric layer SiO₂, which further enhances the emission modulation. Under optimized conditions, solar absorption can be reduced to 0.25, while emission modulation can reach 0.44 and visible transmission can be up to 0.7. It can be found that the TSRD can simultaneously achieve infrared variable emission, high visible transparency and low solar absorption. The HMM structure instead of traditional metal reflectors offers the possibility to achieve high transparency. In addition, the formation of FP resonance between the VO₂ film and HMM structure is the key to achieving variable emission. We believe that this work can not only provide a new approach for the design of spacecraft smart thermal control devices, but also show great potential for application in spacecraft solar panels.