On-demand solar and thermal radiation management based on switchable interwoven surfaces

• Main Authors: Ke, Yujie, Li, Yanbin, Wu, Lichen, Wang, Shancheng, Yang, Ronggui, Yin, Jie, Tan, Gang, Long, Yi
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science and Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Materials; Energy Conservation; Infrared Devices
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163228
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

On-demand and selective regulation of the radiative cooling (long-wave infrared, LWIR) and solar heat gain (ultraviolet-, visible- and near-IR, UV-vis-NIR) of building facades is a grand challenge but essential to decrease energy usage in buildings. Here, we report a reconfigurable interwoven surface that can dynamically switch the overlapping sequence to achieve spectral selectivity and ultrabroadband modulations for windows, walls/roofs with decent spectral modulations, and energy-saving performance. The result surpasses the best reported passive radiative cooling smart windows with a more than doubled visible transmittance (Tlum = 0.50) and LWIR modulation (ΔϵLWIR = 0.57). Our energy-saving samples outperform the commercial building materials across climate zones 2-6. This design principle is scalable and applicable for diverse materials, interwoven structures, and 2D-3D surfaces, which provide a strategy to give programmable heating/cooling modulations in various applications.