Engineers have developed a synthetic camouflage Bashny.Net

University of Illinois researchers have created a multi-layered platform that will provide the foundation for modern applications such as wearable adaptive camouflage.

To create a new technology engineers inspired the ability of the octopus to change color. It was the layered skin of a marine life that became the idea for developing a flexible device that, when light hits, changes color from black to white.

Synthetic camouflage is an array of pixels of 1 mm 2, each of which has a set of optical and electrical components designed to act as biological components in cephalopods. According to John A. Rogers, “The general strategies of design and architecture are very similar to what you see in biology, although physics and materials are very different.”

When light hits the photodetectors, the current from them goes up to an ultra-thin layer of silicon diodes. Electricity heats the diodes, which in turn activate the top layer of artificial skin where the color changes. The upper layer of the device consists of a polymer filled with a thermochromic dye. At room temperature, the dye molecules are a black, opaque coating. But as it receives heat from diodes, the molecules become colorless and open up the underlying layers of white silver.

Harvard engineer George M. Whitesides, who was not involved in the study, said, “That it’s a black-and-white system is not a limitation.” It is a problem of technique, not of concept, to make it multicolored.” The developers themselves are sure that the novelty will be useful not only as an adaptive camouflage. “Camouflage will help you become invisible, but this system can also be programmed to do the opposite.”

Source: nauka24news.ru/