Raising the IQ of Smart Windows

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed a new material to make smart windows even smarter. The material is a thin coating of nanocrystals embedded in glass that can dynamically modify sunlight as it passes through a window. Unlike existing technologies, the coating provides selective control over visible light and heat-producing near-infrared (NIR) light, so windows can maximize both energy savings and occupant comfort in a wide range of climates. "In the US, we spend about a quarter of our total energy on lighting, heating and cooling our buildings," says Delia Milliron, a chemist at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry who led this research. "When used as a window coating, our new material can have a major impact on building energy efficiency." Milliron is corresponding author on a paper describing the results the journal Nature . The paper is titled, "Tunable near-infrared and visible light transmittance in nanocrystal-in-glass composites," co-authored by Anna Llordés, Guillermo Garcia, and Jaume Gazquez. Milliron's research group is already well known for their smart-window technology that blocks NIR without blocking visible light.