High-performance planar thin film thermochromic window via dynamic optical impedance matching

Window coatings with dynamic solar transmittance represent an excellent opportunity to reduce building heating and cooling loads, which account for >40% of energy consumed by the built environment. In particular, inorganic vanadium dioxide based thermochromic coatings offer long lifetimes (>30 years) and can be passively integrated into a window system without additional electronics or power requirements. However, their limited solar modulation depth and wide phase-change hysteresis have traditionally restricted their ability to adapt to changing weather conditions. Here, we derive an optical performance limit for thin film vanadium dioxide coatings which we find to be far beyond current literature. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a solution-processed multilayer thin film coating that uses temperature dependent optical impedance matching to approach the optical performance limit. The thin film coating demonstrated has a record solar transmittance modulation of 21.8%, whilst maintaining a high l...