UC Irvine

Multispectral materials are of great need in advanced applications in electronics, camouflage, personal clothing, and space missions. Consequently, substantial effort has been made over the years to design materials of complex functionalities enabling them to perform within either one or both visible and infrared electromagnetic ranges. Nonetheless, many of these multispectral materials are limited by their scale and restricted tunability as well as challenges related to their functionalities in different wavelength ranges forcing a settlement on compromised properties. To address these challenges, we drew inspiration from cephalopods, the marine masters of light. Their astounding ability to dynamically tune their optical appearance is possible due to the complex skin structure composed of chromatophores and iridophores splotches providing pigmentary and structural coloration, respectively. From these, we first developed large-area chromatophore-inspired adaptive infrared and thermoregulatory materials featuring on-demand infrared transmittance modulation for over 20-fold accompanied by heat flux by over 30W m−2¬ when mechanically actuated. Next, we modified our chromatophore-inspired composite materials and broadened their wavelength functionality by enhancing them with visible wavelength-selective, splotch-inspired structures and obtaining hybrid multispectral composite materials of maintained infrared transmittance modulation of over 20-fold and additional visible reflectance modulation of over 9-fold upon the mechanical actuation. Altogether, our findings demonstrate a successful design and fabrication of multispectral thermoregulatory materials with tunable functionalities which can find application in advanced systems such as wearable electronics, thermal-management systems, smart windows, and multispectral camouflage.