Tunable Metasurfaces and Phase-Change Oxides for Thermal and Optical Control
This community designs thin-film materials and structured surfaces that actively manage heat and light, primarily for building energy efficiency, solar energy harvesting, and terahertz sensing.
The work centers on vanadium dioxide (VO2) and other transition metal oxides, leveraging their phase-transition properties to create devices that change their optical or thermal response with temperature. Key applications include electrochromic and thermochromic smart windows that regulate solar heat gain, radiative cooling surfaces that lower building temperatures without electricity, and broadband solar absorbers for energy collection. A significant portion of the research also focuses on terahertz metamaterials and metasurfaces, using tunable materials like graphene and VO2 to control absorption, polarization conversion, and sensing in the terahertz frequency band. These components are typically fabricated using methods such as magnetron sputtering to form oxide thin films.
The largest share of the community's output is found in vanadium research, accounting for 11.1% of all vanadium research tracked, with 7,796 papers in this group. Tungsten and molybdenum also appear frequently, representing 3.4% and 1.5% of their respective element research.
There are 24,219 papers in this community, publishing most frequently in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Applied Physics Letters, and the Journal of Applied Physics.
Recent work continues to focus on integrating vanadium dioxide with graphene and other materials to create tunable terahertz absorbers and broadband solar energy devices, with specific designs for mid-infrared absorption and polarization control.