Cool windows: simultaneously engineering high visible transparency and strong solar rejection

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel eight-layer window structure that achieves high visible transparency while effectively reflecting UV and near-infrared light, reducing heat gain and cooling interior temperatures.

Contribution

The authors designed and experimentally demonstrated a compact multilayer window with sharp spectral transitions, improving transparency and solar rejection with fewer layers than traditional methods.

Findings

Achieved >70% visible transmittance and >80% near-infrared reflectance.

Demonstrated a temperature reduction of up to 3.8°C inside a simulated vehicle.

Realized sharp spectral reflectance changes at ~390 and ~680 nm with only eight layers.

Abstract

For window applications in hot climates, it is desirable to have windows with high visible transparency, while maintaining strong reflectance in both the ultraviolet and near infrared, to minimize unwanted heat gain. Given that more than 70% of incident solar energy is at wavelengths shorter than 1000 nm, achieving spectrally abrupt transitions from transparent to reflecting at the boundaries of the visible is essential. Such abrupt transitions at multiple wavelengths typically would require tens of dielectric layers, which is impractical for most window applications. Here, we propose and realize a structure comprising only eight planar layers that achieves sharp reflectance changes at ~390 and ~680 nm, resulting in high visible transmittance (>70%), and high near-infrared (>80%) and UV (>60%) reflectance, as well as high mid-infrared emissivity (>90%) for additional radiative cooling. We demonstrate that our engineered window reduces air temperature by up to 3.8 {\deg}C inside an enclosed box simulating a vehicle, compared to a box with a reference window.