Thermal camouflage disguises hot and coldHunters don camouflage clothing to blend in with their surr
Thermal camouflage disguises hot and cold
Hunters don camouflage clothing to blend in with their surroundings. But thermal camouflage – or the appearance of being the same temperature as one’s environment – is much more difficult. Now researchers, reporting in ACS’ journal Nano Letters, have developed a system that can reconfigure its thermal appearance to blend in with varying temperatures in a matter of seconds.
Most state-of-the-art night-vision devices are based on thermal imaging. Thermal cameras detect infrared radiation emitted by an object, which increases with the object’s temperature. When viewed through a night-vision device, humans and other warm-blooded animals stand out against the cooler background. Previously, scientists have tried to develop thermal camouflage for various applications, but they have encountered problems such as slow response speed, lack of adaptability to different temperatures and the requirement for rigid materials. Coskun Kocabas and coworkers wanted to develop a fast, rapidly adaptable and flexible material.
