Squid protein helps develop material invisible to infrared cameras

Researchers have invented a material that is invisible to infrared cameras.

Washington: Researchers have invented a material that is invisible to infrared cameras.

In the study, conducted by UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, researchers created a biomimetic infrared camouflage coating inspired by Loliginidae - also known as pencil squids.

Led by Alon Gorodetsky, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science, the team produced reflectin - a structural protein essential in the squid’s ability to change color and reflect light - in common bacteria and used it to make thin, optically active films that mimic the skin of a squid.

With the appropriate chemical stimuli, the films’ coloration and reflectance can shift back and forth, giving them a dynamic configurability that allows the films to disappear and reappear when visualized with an infrared camera.

Gorodetsky said that this is just the first step in developing a material that will self-reconfigure in response to an external signal.

The study has been published online in Advanced Materials.

ANI

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