University of North Texas — Nanoscale Energy Transport Lab

Snapshot

Country	United States
City	Denton
Tier	Engineered
Primary ecosystem	Engineered Emissivity
Unit	Nanoscale Energy Transport (NET) Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Publicly linked people	Zihao (Richard) Zhang

Why it matters internationally

The Nanoscale Energy Transport Lab in UNT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering develops micro- and nanoscale coatings that control thermal radiation, with spacecraft thermal regulation as an explicit application. It leads the NASA M-STAR project ProTECC on electrochromic coatings that combine radiative heat switching with dust mitigation, and has published broadband reflectance and room-temperature emittance of lunar dust simulants from 400 nm to 20 µm. Its strength lies in engineered emitters for space rather than in dedicated emissivity metrology.

Scope of activity

Quantities: spectral reflectance (visible to far infrared) · room-temperature thermal emittance · solar absorptivity
Spectral range: 400 nm – 20 µm (lunar dust simulant study)
Temperature: Room temperature
Methodology: Reflectance-based absorptivity and emittance from integrating-sphere and specular spectrometry and FTIR with diffuse and specular accessories, supported by effective-medium modelling; design of micro/nanoscale thermal-radiation coatings for spacecraft thermal control.

Application domains: spacecraft thermal-control coatings · lunar exploration: thermal management and dust mitigation (NASA M-STAR ProTECC) · metasurface and thin-film thermal emitters.

IR-EMPOWER contributions

IR-EMPOWER 2026: Richard Zhang, “Room Temperature Direct Emissivity Measurements of Spacecraft Thermal Materials”; scientific committee

External sources

Traceability

Every claim in this profile traces to the external sources listed above. Profile follows the research-map methodology. Added to the directory: 2026-09-25 (verified against the institution’s public pages or peer-reviewed publications).