Tunable Metasurfaces and Phase-Change Materials for Thermal and Optical Control
This community designs thin-film structures and metamaterials that manipulate light and heat, primarily to manage building temperatures, harvest solar energy, and enable tunable terahertz devices.
The work centers on engineering the optical properties of materials like vanadium dioxide, titanium nitride, and graphene. Vanadium dioxide is a dominant material here, valued for its ability to switch between insulating and metallic states, which allows for dynamic control of infrared radiation. These materials are structured into metasurfaces and metamaterials to create devices that absorb, reflect, or emit specific wavelengths. Key applications include radiative cooling systems that lower surface temperatures without energy input, thermochromic smart windows that adjust transparency based on temperature, and broadband solar absorbers for energy harvesting. A significant portion of the research also focuses on terahertz wave manipulation, developing tunable absorbers and sensors that can be adjusted electronically or thermally.
The largest share of the community's output is found in vanadium research, accounting for 11.6% of all vanadium research, and 7,358 papers here.
There are 21,119 papers in this community, published most frequently in Optics Express, Applied Physics Letters, and Optics & Laser Technology.
Recent work continues to focus on enhancing the tunability and bandwidth of these devices, with new designs for vanadium dioxide-based terahertz absorbers and broadband solar energy harvesters using titanium and indium arsenide structures.