Multilevel radiative thermal memory realized by the hysteretic metal-insulator transition of vanadium dioxide

Thermal information processing is attracting much interest as an analog of electronic computing. We experimentally demonstrated a radiative thermal memory utilizing a phase change material. The hysteretic metal-insulator transition of vanadium dioxide (VO2) allows us to obtain a multilevel memory. We developed a Preisach model to explain the hysteretic radiative heat transfer between a VO2 film and a fused quartz substrate. The transient response of our memory predicted by the Preisach model agrees well with the measured response. Our multilevel thermal memory paves the way for thermal information processing as well as contactless thermal management.