Large-Area and Flexible Plasmonic Metasurface for Laser-Infrared Compatible Camouflage

Due to interminable surveillance and reconnaissance through various sophisticated multispectral detectors, the need for multispectral compatible camouflage is now more than ever. Here, a flexible plasmonic metasurface is proposed to simultaneously realize low reflection at representative lasers (i.e., 1.06, 1.55, and 10.6 mu m) and low emission in the atmosphere windows of both 3-5 and 8-14 mu m. High absorption for both 1.06 and 1.55 mu m lasers is realized by the destructive-interference design of the multilayer Au/Ge/Ti/Ge films, while low reflection for the 10.6 mu m laser results from the coding metasurface design, and low emission is attributed to ultrahigh reflection of the continuous Au/Ge/Ti/Ge films in the atmosphere windows. As a proof of concept, a flexible metasurface sample (10 cm x 10 cm) is prepared by the soft-lithography technology. The measured specular reflectivities are 0.017, 0.13, and 0.17 at wavelengths 1.06, 1.55, and 10.6 mu m, respectively. Meanwhile, the average emissivities are 0.19 and 0.11 in 3-5 and 8-14 mu m, respectively. Additionally, the flexible metasurface also exhibits integrated advantages including easy mass fabrication, good mechanical flexibility and robustness, super-hydrophobic characteristic, unambiguously demonstrating the success of the design strategy for promoting multispectral compatible camouflage.

Automated summary

A flexible plasmonic metasurface is proposed to achieve low reflection and low emission at different wavelengths, suitable for multispectral camouflage. The design includes destructive-interference design and coding metasurface design to realize high absorption and low reflection for different lasers. Additionally, the metasurface possesses advantages such as easy fabrication, mechanical flexibility, and stability.