Controlling infrared thermal radiations can significantly improve the environmental adaptability of targets and has attracted increasing attention in the field of thermal camouflage. Thermal emitters based on Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) can flexibly change their radiation energy by controlling the reversible phase transition of GST, which possesses fast switching speed and low power consumption. However, the feasibility of the dynamic regulation of GST emitters lacks experimental and simulation verification. In this paper, we propose an electrically tunable thermal emitter consisting of a metal–insulator–metal plasmonic metasurface based on GST. Both optical and thermal simulations are conducted to optimize the structural parameters of the GST emitter. The results indicate that this emitter possesses large emissivity tunability, wide incident angle, polarization insensitivity, phase-transition feasibility, and dynamic thermal camouflage capability. Therefore, this work proposes a reliable optimization method to design viable GST-based thermal emitters. Moreover, it provides theoretical support for the practical application of phase-change materials in dynamic infrared thermal camouflage technology.

Active metasurfaces, whose optical properties can be tuned by an external stimulus such as electric or laser pulses, have attracted great research interest recently. The phase change material (PCM), antimony sulfide (Sb₂S₃), has been reported to modulate resonance wavelengths from the visible to the infrared. Here, we present a purely numerical study of an active and nonvolatile narrow-band perfect absorber in the infrared region based on a nanostructured metal–insulator–metal (MIM) metasurface incorporating Sb₂S₃. The proposed absorber exhibits a high quality factor and achieves near-unity absorption at resonance wavelengths. In addition, the absorption spectrum can be dynamically modulated by the phase transition of Sb₂S₃, with a modulation range approaching 1 μm. Moreover, the designed absorber shows insensitivity to the angle of incidence. This study offers a feasible strategy for developing Sb₂S₃-integrated metasurface perfect absorbers with potential applications in selective thermal emitters and bolometers.