Visible and infrared optical modulation of PSLC smart films doped with ATO nanoparticles

Zhibo Zhang; Ruicong Zhang; Liangge Xu; Jiajun Li; Lei Yang; Yanan Yang; Andrey Bolshakov; Jiaqi Zhu

doi:10.1039/d1dt01575c

Visible and infrared optical modulation of PSLC smart films doped with ATO nanoparticles

Dalton Trans. 2021 Jul 27;50(29):10033-10040. doi: 10.1039/d1dt01575c.

Authors

Zhibo Zhang¹, Ruicong Zhang¹, Liangge Xu¹, Jiajun Li¹, Lei Yang², Yanan Yang³, Andrey Bolshakov¹, Jiaqi Zhu⁴

Affiliations

¹ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin 150080, P. R. China. zhujq@hit.edu.cn.
² Center of Analysis Measurement, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, P. R. China.
³ Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education of China, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
⁴ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin 150080, P. R. China. zhujq@hit.edu.cn and Key Laboratory of Micro-systems and Micro-structures Manufacturing, Ministry of Education, Harbin 150080, P. R. China.

PMID: 34231593
DOI: 10.1039/d1dt01575c

Abstract

In recent years, smart windows have been gradually applied and developed in the fields of environmental protection, energy management, smart camouflage and display. With the continuous upgrading of market demand, smart windows with both visible and infrared band modulation functions are the future development trends. However, the optical modulation of smart windows is usually limited in the visible light band (380-780 nm). In this paper, we report a novel smart window by doping antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) nanoparticles (NPs) into polymer stabilized liquid crystal (PSLC) films. These films have the widest waveband modulation function among those reported so far, covering the visible and infrared regions (380-5500 nm). The transmittance of the as-prepared smart films can be changed reversibly from highly transparent (78.5%) state to a strong light scattering (10%) state in the visible region. In addition, due to the localized surface plasmon resonance of ATO NPs, up to 80.7% of the infrared invisible light can be effectively shielded. The significance of this research is to provide theoretical and technical support for the broadband optical modulation of novel smart windows.