Issue 5: Thermal Photonics for Sustainability (2024)

Switchable radiative cooling and solar heating for sustainable thermal management

Switchable radiative cooling and solar heating for sustainable thermal management

Radiative thermal management technologies that utilize thermal radiation from nano/microstructure for cooling and heating have gained significant attention in sustainable energy research. Passive radiative cooling and solar heating operate continuously, which …

Radiative cooling: arising from practice and in turn serving practice

Radiative cooling: arising from practice and in turn serving practice

Radiative cooling, as a renewable cooling technology, is expected to mitigate growing global warming. However, the barrier when promoting radiative cooling from the laboratory to practice is still a blind spot and needs to be discussed right now. Here, on the …

Superhydrophobic bilayer coating for passive daytime radiative cooling

Superhydrophobic bilayer coating for passive daytime radiative cooling

Passive radiative cooling is an energy-free cooling method by exchanging thermal radiation with the cold universe through the transparent atmospheric window. Spectrum tailoring of the radiative cooler is the key to daytime radiative cooling in previously …

Investigation of recycled materials for radiative cooling under tropical climate

Investigation of recycled materials for radiative cooling under tropical climate

As a sustainable alternative to using virgin polymer, we propose the use of recycled polymer for the fabrication of passive radiative cooling materials to tackle both the increasing demand for cooling systems and to upcycle plastic waste. Using recycled …

A scalable and durable polydimethylsiloxane-coated nanoporous polyethylene textile for daytime radiative cooling

A scalable and durable polydimethylsiloxane-coated nanoporous polyethylene textile for daytime radiative cooling

Radiative cooling technology with zero-energy consumption and zero-carbon emission has drawn enormous attention. However, the high-cost manufacture, limited scalability, and narrow application scopes remain major impediments to radiative cooling …

Three-dimensionally printable hollow silica nanoparticles for subambient passive cooling

Three-dimensionally printable hollow silica nanoparticles for subambient passive cooling

Solar reflectance and thermal emissivity are critical benchmarks for evaluating the effectiveness of passive cooling strategies. The integration of three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques with passive cooling materials enables local thermal management of …

High albedo daytime radiative cooling for enhanced bifacial PV performance

High albedo daytime radiative cooling for enhanced bifacial PV performance

We present a radiative cooling material capable of enhancing albedo while reducing ground surface temperatures beneath fielded bifacial solar panels. Electrospinning a layer of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers, or nanoPAN, onto a polymer-coated silver mirror …

Enhanced radiative cooling with Janus optical properties for low-temperature space cooling

Enhanced radiative cooling with Janus optical properties for low-temperature space cooling

Passive daytime radiative cooling that could provide sub-ambient cooling emerges as a promising technology to reduce household energy consumption. Nonetheless, prevailing studies are predominantly focused on surface cooling, often overlooking its adaptability …

Efficient radiative cooling of low-cost BaSO_4 paint-paper dual-layer thin films

Efficient radiative cooling of low-cost BaSO_4 paint-paper dual-layer thin films

Many materials have been explored for the purpose of creating structures with high radiative cooling potential, such as nanocellulose-based structures and nanoparticle-based coatings, which have been reported with environmentally friendly attributes and high …

Radiative cooling textiles using industry-standard particle-free nonporous micro-structured fibers

Radiative cooling textiles using industry-standard particle-free nonporous micro-structured fibers

Thermal radiation is a major dissipative pathway for heat generated by the human body and offers a significant thermoregulation mechanism over a wide range of conditions. We could use this in garment design to enhance personal cooling, which can improve the …

Aqueous double-layer paint of low thickness for sub-ambient radiative cooling

Aqueous double-layer paint of low thickness for sub-ambient radiative cooling

Radiative cooling may serve as a promising option to reduce energy consumption for space cooling. Radiative cooling paints provide a cost-effective and scalable solution for diverse applications and attract great attention, but the state-of-art cooling paints …

Porous polymer bilayer with near-ideal solar reflectance and longwave infrared emittance

Porous polymer bilayer with near-ideal solar reflectance and longwave infrared emittance

This study explores the optical design of a daytime radiative cooler with near-ideal solar reflectance and longwave infrared (LWIR) emittance through materials selection and nanostructuring. Focusing on polymers as a materials platform, we introduce a bilayer …

Visible light electrochromism based on reversible dissolution/deposition of MnO<sub>2</sub>

Visible light electrochromism based on reversible dissolution/deposition of MnO<sub>2</sub>

Electrochromic (EC) windows based on reversible metal electro-deposition/dissolution (RME) are exciting alternatives to static lighting control using blinds and shades. However, the difficulty of reversibly and uniformly electrodepositing large-area metal …

Energy scavenging from the diurnal cycle with a temperature-doubler circuit and a self-adaptive photonic design

Energy scavenging from the diurnal cycle with a temperature-doubler circuit and a self-adaptive photonic design

A temperature-doubler circuit is the functional equivalent of a voltage-doubler in the thermal domain. Effective temperature-doubler circuits could benefit energy scavenging from fluctuating thermal resources, e.g. the diurnal cycle. However, the current …

Reverse-switching radiative cooling for synchronizing indoor air conditioning

Reverse-switching radiative cooling for synchronizing indoor air conditioning

Switchable radiative cooling based on the phase-change material vanadium dioxide (VO2) automatically modulates thermal emission in response to varying ambient temperature. However, it is still challenging to achieve constant indoor temperature control solely …

Porous vanadium dioxide thin film-based Fabry?Perot cavity system for radiative cooling regulating thermochromic windows: experimental and simulation studies

Porous vanadium dioxide thin film-based Fabry?Perot cavity system for radiative cooling regulating thermochromic windows: experimental and simulation studies

Radiative cooling in smart windows using VO_2 – a dynamic thermal management material, is of potential interest for enhancing energy savings in buildings due to its both solar and emittance tuneability in response to changing temperatures. However, studies …

Theoretical study of a highly fault-tolerant and scalable adaptive radiative cooler

Theoretical study of a highly fault-tolerant and scalable adaptive radiative cooler

Conventional static radiative coolers have an unadjustable cooling capacity, which often results in overcooling in low temperature environment. Therefore, there is a great need for an adaptive dynamic radiative cooler. However, such adaptive coolers usually …

Ultra-broadband and wide-angle nonreciprocal thermal emitter based on Weyl semimetal metamaterials

Ultra-broadband and wide-angle nonreciprocal thermal emitter based on Weyl semimetal metamaterials

Nonreciprocal thermal radiation can violate Kirchhoff’s law and exhibit different emissivity at symmetric polar angles relative to the normal direction. Realizing a mid-infrared broadband nonreciprocal thermal emitter with a wide emission angle range is a …

Transparent energy-saving windows based on broadband directional thermal emission

Transparent energy-saving windows based on broadband directional thermal emission

Passive radiative cooling has emerged as a sustainable energy-saving solution, characterized by its energy-free operation and absence of carbon emissions. Conventional radiative coolers are designed with a skyward orientation, allowing for efficient heat …

Lithography-free directional control of thermal emission

Lithography-free directional control of thermal emission

Blackbody radiation is incoherent and omnidirectional, whereas various novel applications in renewable energy require a degree of directional control of a thermally emitted beam. So far, such directional control has required nano-structuring the surface of a …

GAGA for nonreciprocal emitters: genetic algorithm gradient ascent optimization of compact magnetophotonic crystals

GAGA for nonreciprocal emitters: genetic algorithm gradient ascent optimization of compact magnetophotonic crystals

Fundamental limits of thermal radiation are imposed by Kirchhoff’s law, which assumes the electromagnetic reciprocity of a material or material system. Thus, breaking reciprocity can enable breaking barriers in thermal efficiency engineering. In this work, …

Ultra-broadband directional thermal emission

Ultra-broadband directional thermal emission

Directional control of thermal emission over its broad wavelength range is a fundamental challenge. Gradient epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material supporting Berreman mode has been proposed as a promising approach. However, the bandwidth is still inherently …

Tailoring full-Stokes thermal emission from twisted-gratings structures

Tailoring full-Stokes thermal emission from twisted-gratings structures

Polarized thermal emission finds extensive applications in remote sensing, landmine detection, and target detection. In applications such as ellipsometry and biomedical analysis, the generation of emission with controllable polarization is preferred. It is …

Effectiveness of multi-junction cells in near-field thermophotovoltaic devices considering additional losses

Effectiveness of multi-junction cells in near-field thermophotovoltaic devices considering additional losses

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy converters hold substantial potential in converting thermal radiation from high-temperature emitters into electrical energy through photovoltaic (PV) cells, offering applications ranging from solar energy harvesting to waste …