Performance, materials and coating technologies of thermochromic thin films on smart windows

A significant amount of energy is consumed to maintain thermal comfort in buildings, a huge portion of which is lost through windows. Smart coating, thin films with spectrally selective properties on the surface of glass, is the innovative solution to the problem. Thermochromic smart windows change their color and optical properties in response to temperature variations. The performance, materials, coating technologies and energy modeling of thermochromic windows are reviewed in the present study. The effect of doping vanadium dioxide (VO2) coatings with different dopants such as tungsten, fluorine, gold nanoparticles and etc. is elaborated. Various deposition techniques, specifically hybrid chemical vapor deposition (AA/APCVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD) methods are elucidated. Different dopants and techniques show different results on metal to semiconductor transition (MST) and the critical temperature. The change in visible and infra-red transmission and reflectance is the touchstone of performance for the different afforded chromogenic intelligent windows. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.