2D-Network VO₂ Metasurface-Integrated Adaptive Radiative Thermal Device With Ultra-Low Solar Absorptance for Spacecraft Thermal Control

Temperature-adaptive thermochromic radiative devices are critical for spacecraft missions encountering large temperature fluctuations. However, traditional vanadium dioxide (VO₂) Fabry–Perot cavities suffer from a severe intrinsic trade-off between dynamic infrared emittance modulation and solar reflection, imposing a significant performance ceiling. To break this bottleneck, we develop a novel metasurface intelligent radiator device (MIRD) featuring a 2D continuous VO₂ network via magnetron sputtering and photolithography to realize complete optical decoupling. The MIRD yields an exceptional ultra-low solar absorptance of 0.26, enabled by reduced VO₂ coverage and wide super-wavelength channels that facilitate the escape of incident photons. Concurrently, the connected VO₂ network achieves robust sub-wavelength infrared trapping, automatically switching its thermal emittance from 0.28 to 0.92 (Δε = 0.64) via a mechanism cooperatively driven by multiple localized surface polariton resonances and the photonically amplified metal-insulator transition. Transient orbital thermodynamic modeling for a one-unit CubeSat nanosatellite in a 600 km low Earth orbit and terrestrial outdoor experiments demonstrate outstanding thermal-regulation efficacy under complex environmental conditions. Featuring relaxed micron-scale feature sizes (2 µm) that favor high-throughput scalable manufacturing, this continuous-network paradigm offers a highly viable solution for intelligent aerospace thermal management.