Smart windows could block brightness and harness light
New material pulls double-duty as shade and perovskite solar cell
By
Maria Temming
9:00am, February 8, 2018
Who needs curtains? One day, you could block out afternoon glare and heat with changeable windows that absorb sunshine to charge your electronics.
A high-tech prototype panel described online January 22 in Nature Materials, switches between transparent pane and dark-tinted solar cell. The layer in the panel that’s responsible for soaking up sun has atoms that only arrange themselves into a light-absorbing crystal structure at high temperatures. When heated, these atoms form a dark-tinted crystal known as a perovskite, a new darling of the solar cell industry (SN: 8/5/17, p. 22).
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/smart-windows-could-block-brightness-and-harness-light?tgt=nr
