Ayooshi Mitra, Amity University Kolkata
The extraordinary ability of Cephalopods to hide in any setting has motivated many researchers to recreate the fascinating ability to camouflage easily in the infrared (IR) and visible spectrum, but this still remains a real mystery. A study was conducted by some researchers of Seoul National University, where only by simple temperature control with a flexible bi-functional device that has the ability of actively cooling and heating, a multispectral undetectable skin was established that allows human skin to actively blend into the background both in the infrared and the visible spectrum. A thermochromic layer is present on the outer surface of the device (thermochromic materials change color reversibly with changes in temperature), which produces different colors based on the surface temperature of the device and extends the cloaking range to the visible spectrum, and completes the stealth platform of day and night simply by controlling the temperature of the device. In this way, the camouflage skin will be able to blend into both thermal and chromic background or even camouflage when it is traveling from one background to another. Since this proof of concept can be worn directly and covers up the human skin in multispectral ranges, it is anticipated that the work will influence the development of soft covert military wearables in the next generation and maybe a multispectral veil belonging to cephalopods or camouflage gadgets for use in future movies.
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Reference:
- Lee, Jinwoo, et al. “Thermally Controlled, Active Imperceptible Artificial Skin in Visible‐to‐Infrared Range.” Advanced Functional Materials 30.36 (2020): 2003328.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/adfm.202003328
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