New York, August 20, 2026 — Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) and Honeywell Aerospace have developed a new way to reduce the transfer of radiant heat between closely spaced bodies by using thin, nonmetallic coatings. In laboratory tests, the novel metasurface reduced thermal radiation emission by over 80% compared to nonstructured surfaces made of the same dielectric materials. The system also maintained its performance across a wide range of operating temperatures and showed resilience to small variations that could occur during design and fabrication.
“Our findings demonstrate the value of looking at thermal radiation as a system-level interaction,” said principal investigator Andrea Alù , director of the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative and Distinguished and Einstein Professor of Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center. “Instead of asking how to make a single nonmetallic surface reflect everything, we asked how two surfaces could be designed to exchange as little energy as possible. That shift in perspective allowed us to overcome longstanding bandwidth restrictions associated with conventional approaches.”
The new approach, resulting from an academic/industry partnership between the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative and Honeywell Aerospace’s Advanced Cryogenics Platform Group, was detailed in a recently published paper in Nature Communications . It will improve thermal insulation and temperature control in electronic devices, infrared sensors, spacecraft components and other technologies where conventional metallic coatings may create problems.
All objects emit energy in the form of thermal radiation. At temperatures encountered in most technologies, much of this energy travels as invisible infrared light. When two objects face each other, each surface emits infrared radiation that can be absorbed by the other, allowing heat to move between them when they are at different temperatures even when they are not touching.
Metallic coatings are commonly used to limit this exchange because metals reflect infrared light across a broad range of wavelengths. But metals also conduct electricity and may interfere with sensitive electronic, optical or thermoelectric systems. They can also be difficult to combine with other materials in integrated systems.
Nonmetallic photonic coatings offer an alternative, but existing designs generally face a trade-off. They may block thermal radiation strongly across a narrow range of wavelengths, or work across a broader range only if they are made very thick, posing challenges in practical technologies.
Instead of trying to make a perfect infrared reflector from a single surface, the research team addressed the problem by designing and combining pairs of thin coatings.
“The key was to stop treating the two surfaces as separate design problems,” said co- lead author Lin Jing , a post-doctoral researcher with the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative. “We designed them as a coordinated pair so that when one surface emits efficiently at multiple selected wavelengths, the other surface is deliberately poor at absorbing those wavelengths.”
The concept is like two radios tuned to different channels. Each radio can transmit and receive, but because they operate on different frequencies, they communicate very little with each other.
For their study, the researchers created a pair of metasurfaces that were engineered to control light. Each metasurface consisted of seven thin layers of nonmetallic, dielectric materials. The layers formed structures known as distributed Bragg reflectors, which can reflect or transmit selected wavelengths of light.
“Traditional distributed Bragg reflectors can exceed the reflectivity of metals; but only over limited bandwidths, which isn’t good for preventing heat transfer over a broad spectrum,” said Honeywell Aerospace principal investigator Tim Palinski . “Using our spectral mismatching technique, we can tolerate high emission from one surface in one band, as long as it is reflected by the other surface in the same band.”
“This complementary design allows us to keep the structures compact, and it also uses a relatively straightforward layered design that can be produced through established thin-film deposition techniques without requiring complex nanoscale patterning,” said co-lead author Mingze He , also a post-doctoral researcher with the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative.”
“I am also particularly excited to see this important result stemming from a strong synergy between industry and academia,” said Alù. “This result would not have been possible without the close collaboration with our Honeywell Aerospace colleagues, who inspired the problem and helped us with developing the concept and bringing it to fruition with careful measurements.”
Additional testing is planned for the technology, which is at the proof-of-concept stage.
“This collaboration brought together the CUNY ASRC team’s expertise in photonic design and optimization with our experience developing technologies for demanding operating environments,” said Honeywell Aerospace researcher Kevin Plocher . “The study offers a promising foundation for thermal-control solutions in systems where conductive metallic coatings are undesirable or impractical.”
About the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center
The Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center elevates scientific research and education at CUNY and beyond through initiatives in environmental sciences, nanoscience, neuroscience, photonics, and structural biology. The center promotes collaboration among established scientists, early-career researchers, and students working across disciplines to address complex scientific questions and societal challenges.
About the CUNY Graduate Center
The CUNY Graduate Center is a leader in public graduate education devoted to enhancing the public good through pioneering research, serious learning, and reasoned debate. The Graduate Center offers ambitious students nearly 50 doctoral and master’s programs of the highest caliber, taught by top faculty from throughout CUNY, the nation’s largest urban public university. Through its nearly 40 centers, institutes, initiatives, and the Advanced Science Research Center, the Graduate Center influences public policy and discourse and shapes innovation.
Nature Communications
Experimental study
Not applicable
Broadband Radiative Heat Transfer Suppression via Dispersion-Engineered Metasurfaces
27-Jun-2026