thermal radiation

A micrometer-thick silicon polymer was added to enhance the structure's cooling power by reflecting thermal radiation through the atmospheric window and into outer space.

This technique can be used to detect both the thermal radiation of the planet, as the team has done to detect the planet candidate, and specific emission lines associated with material falling onto the planet and hitting its surface with high velocity.

The team coated the roofs, walls, and road pavements of an industrial area in Singapore and found that by comparison with an adjacent uncoated area, the coated environment was up to two degrees Celsius cooler in the afternoon, with pedestrian thermal comfort level improving by up to 1.5 degrees Celsius, measured using the Universal Thermal Climate Index -- a common international standard for human outdoor temperature sensation that takes into account temperature, relative humidity, thermal radiation, and wind speed.

This allows the imaging system to capture the spectral and polarization details of thermal radiation in addition to the intensity information that is acquired with traditional thermal imaging.

"Integrating these large-area meta-optical devices with computational imaging algorithms facilitated the efficient reconstruction of the thermal radiation spectrum," said Wang.