Flexible Superhydrophobic Infrared Invisibility Cloak for Hiding Objects From Both Thermal and Laser Detections

Infrared invisibility has continued to develop in recent decades, triggered by novel physics, advanced fabrication technology and raw materials. However, the quick response of infrared stealth during transmedia (water–air/water–land) movement, which is important in practical scenarios, has not been investigated. Here, we employ the random thermal effect of the interaction between laser and matter to construct a bionic flexible thin-film superhydrophobic infrared invisibility cloak. The average emissivity of invisibility cloak is 0.224 over 8–14 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\mu }}\text{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and specular reflectivity at the incident angle of 10 degree is 1.1% over 2.5–16 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\mu }}\text{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula>. These characteristics indicate the integrated stealth functionality against active (laser) and passive (thermal) detection, respectively. The contact angle between the cloak and water is 154°, which also indicates its unique cross-media response capability. We also show that the developed infrared stealth cloak is robust to practical (nonideal) manufacturing conditions. Our design strategy expands the concept of infrared stealth to cross-media applications.