Inverse Design of Active-Source Metamaterials for Thermal Camouflage with Arbitrary Active Sources

Precise control of active-source thermal fields is critical for advanced technological applications, including thermal camouflage, thermal protection, and energy harvesting. However, the inherent heat generation from active sources often results in localized high-temperature regions and complex, non-linear heat flux distributions, posing significant challenges for effectively managing these thermal fields. Here, a novel theoretical design framework is presented for active-source metamaterials (ASM) by integrating inverse design principles with advanced transformation thermotics. This ASM framework allows for the conversion of complex active-source effects into tailored anisotropic thermal conductivity distributions, thus enabling precise modulation of active-source thermal fields for a variety of advanced applications. As a proof-of-concept, the precise thermal camouflage of active sources is demonstrated, ranging from simple circular geometries to more complex multi-leaf configurations, and systematically investigate the interactions between the temperature fields, heat flux distributions, and the power of active sources. Both numerical simulations and experimental validations are conducted to substantiate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The work establishes a versatile framework for the precise management of active-source thermal fields, offering significant potential for applications in fields such as chip design, battery technology, and energy systems.