New flexible material can make any window 'smart'

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Plazma Inferno!

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International team of researchers has invented a new flexible smart window material that, when incorporated into windows, sunroofs, or even curved glass surfaces, will have the ability to control both heat and light from the sun.
Team's advancement is a new low-temperature process for coating the new smart material on plastic, which makes it easier and cheaper to apply than conventional coatings made directly on the glass itself. The team demonstrated a flexible electrochromic device, which means a small electric charge (about 4 volts) can lighten or darken the material and control the transmission of heat-producing, near-infrared radiation. Such smart windows are aimed at saving on cooling and heating bills for homes and businesses.

http://phys.org/news/2016-08-flexible-material-window-smart.html

Paper: http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4734.html
 
A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing and Technology is working on similar 'smart windows' concept by using a coating that blocks 90 per cent of the heat from sunlight.
By fine-tuning the chemical composition of nanoparticles, A*STAR researchers have developed a coating that is promising for fabricating smart windows suitable for tropical countries1. Such windows block almost all the infrared heat from sun rays, while admitting most of the visible light.
Researchers say that this infrared shielding coating, with 10-nanometer antimony-doped tin oxide nanoparticles, blocks more than 90 per cent of near-infrared radiation, while transmitting more than 80 per cent of visible light. These figures are much better than those of coatings obtained using commercial antimony-doped tin oxide nanopowders. In particular, the infrared shielding performance of our small antimony-doped tin oxide nanocrystals is twice that of larger commercial antimony-doped tin oxide powders.

http://www.research.a-star.edu.sg/research/7533/admitting-visible-light-rejecting-infrared-heat
 
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