Thermal Manipulation in Multi-Layered Anisotropic Materials via Computed Thermal Patterning

Manipulation of heat distribution in the material is a long-term goal that has been pursued in the field of thermal functional materials. Various thermal manipulation methods have been successfully developed, some of which have realized gorgeous thermal patterns. However, existing thermal functional materials are either difficult to avoid introducing massive external heaters and cables or it is hard to achieve dynamic thermal manipulation with a high thermal resolution and accuracy. In addition, the complicated manufacturing process also limits the wide application of thermal functional materials. Herein, a computed thermal patterning method is proposed, which can dynamically achieve a freewheeling thermal manipulation in the highly versatile and easily manufactured multi-layered material. This method first introduces the principle of tomography into the thermal manipulation by treating heat beams as light energy via a multi-angled rhythmical superposition, enabling the human characters to be written, paintings to be drawn, movies to be played, without embedding any external heaters or cables. A particular thermal diffusion problem in the tomographic process is solved by developing an inverse thermal diffusion optimization. Experimental cases demonstrate the great potential of this method in multi-zoned thermal forming, encrypted messaging, 3D thermal printing, and morphing.