Next Generation of Thermal Barrier Coatings with High Temperature Metal-Silicide Metamaterials

Thermal metamaterials have emerged as a powerful platform in the engineering of radiative heat transfer across a broad range of applications, including thermal imaging, passive cooling, and thermo-photovoltaics. Here, a novel application is presented for metamaterials: thermal dual barrier coatings (TDBCs). It is shown that the incorporation of carefully crafted metamaterials into widely used thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) offers a transformative potential to improve their thermal insulation performance. The metamaterial-based TDBC mitigates both conductive and radiative heat transfer, bridging a critical gap in traditional TBC technology, which focuses solely on thermal conduction. In designing the metamaterial, the concept of oxidation resistance through passivation and Pilling-Bedworth Ratio (PBR) engineering is brought to the forefront of material selection to enhance overall stability in harsh environments. The use of metal silicides in metamaterials is also proposed as an overlooked class of oxidation-resistant metallic building blocks. The study achieves high-temperature thermal metamaterials—stable at 1200 C even in ambient conditions. Merging the fields of thermal metamaterials and TBC technology may present a new frontier with transformative applications impacting energy sciences as well as the energy industry.