You could have smart windows in an office building that automatically became more or less opaque, depending on the amount of sunlight coming through.
-Daping Chu
Imagine a glass skyscraper in which all of the windows could go from clear to opaque at the flick of a switch, allowing occupants to regulate the amount of sunlight coming through the windows without having to rely on costly air conditioning or other artificial methods of temperature control.
Researchers in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering have developed a type of ‘smart’ glass that switches back and forth between transparent and opaque, while using very low amounts of energy. The material, known as Smectic A composites, could be used in buildings, automotive or display applications.
Working with industrial partners including Dow Corning, the Cambridge researchers have been developing ‘Smectic A’ composites over the past two decades. The team, based at the Department of Engineering’s Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE), has made samples of Smectic A based glass, and is also able to produce it on a roll-to-roll process so that it can be printed onto plastic. It can be switched back and forth from transparent to opaque millions of times, and can be kept in either state for as long as the user wants.
“In addition to going back and forth between clear and opaque, we can also do different levels of opacity, so for example, you could have smart windows in an office building that automatically became more or less opaque, depending on the amount of sunlight coming through,” said Professor Daping Chu, one of the developers of Smectic A technology.
The main component of the developed composite material is made up of a type of liquid crystal known as a ‘smectic’ liquid crystal, which is different than a solid crystal or a liquid.
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Image: Glass window with panels of Smectic A
Credit: Daping Chu
Reproduced courtesy of University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering
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