Self-powered smart windows are desirable with the expectations of their energy-saving, weather-independent, user-controllable, and miniature performance. Recently developed solar- or thermal-powered smart windows largely depend on the weather conditions and have an extremely slow response, and only a certain portion of the saved energy can be utilized by the external circuit for mode conversion. In this work, a self-powered normally transparent smart window was developed by the conjunction of a rotary freestanding sliding triboelectric nanogenerator (RFS-TENG) and a polymer network liquid crystal (PNLC) cell. To fabricate the PNLC cell, the alignment layer with randomly distributed microdomains was constructed to encapsulate a mixture of LC polymers and nematic LCs. The opacity of the smart window exposed to an alternating electric field was considerably improved owing to the embedded microdomains and a dense web of LC polymers. The ultrahigh haziness greatly alleviates the charge density required for the LC actuation and thus enables the driving by the TENG where the charge amount is usually limited. The RFS-TENG was elaborately designed with six periodic bent triboelectric films and Ag electrodes, which presented an ultralow friction wear and met the frequency requirement to achieve the steady opacity. By harvesting the mechanical energies from ambient environments, the tribo-induced smart window can benefit a wide variety of fields, such as self-powered sunroofs, wind-driven smart farming systems etc.
Keywords: liquid crystals; polymer network liquid crystals; self-powered smart windows; triboelectric nanogenerators; ultrahigh haziness.