Numerical study of the thermally adaptive emissivity of VO2-polymer nanostructured coatings

Journal article, 2022

The emissivity of an opal photonic crystal loaded with thermochromic VO2 nanoparticles is studied through optical calculations, highlighting the influence of the structure by comparison with a homogenized model. Parameters are first set to maximize the structure influence on material emissivity. Then, a full study of the influence of the VO2 concentration is made to identify, on one hand, cases with the highest structure impact, and on the other hand, interesting cases for applications such as energy-efficient coatings for buildings, satellites, and camouflage applications.