Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed a camouflage sheet material that can change color to match its surroundings. The material’s color changing dye is based on the camouflage technique used by animals like octopi, cuttlefish, squid and other cephalopods.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed a camouflage sheet material that can change color to match its surroundings.
The material’s color changing dye is based on the camouflage technique used by animals like octopi, cuttlefish, squid and other cephalopods.
Although the animals can change to many different colors, the material designed by scientists can only go from black to white, or transparent.
The top layer of the material uses temperature sensitive dye, that turns black at low temperatures, and becomes clear when it reaches 116 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.
The middle layer of the sheet is made up of silicon circuits that control the temperature, and the bottom is a transparent silicone rubber foundation that detects the changes in light and color of the surroundings using a photo sensor grid.
Measuring in at around two hundred microns, or about the thickness of two human hairs, the material is an example of the potential uses of color changing technology.
The researchers have already been contacted for its possible use as color changing fabric for clothes.
Using it for color changing wallpaper or interior surfaces has also been brought up by the school of architecture at the University of Illinois.
