Two-Dimensional SiO2/VO2 Photonic Crystals with Statically Visible and Dynamically Infrared Modulated for Smart Window Deployment

Yujie Ke; Igal Balin; Ning Wang; Qi Lu; Alfred Iing Yoong Tok; Timothy J White; Shlomo Magdassi; Ibrahim Abdulhalim; Yi Long

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b12175

Two-Dimensional SiO₂/VO₂ Photonic Crystals with Statically Visible and Dynamically Infrared Modulated for Smart Window Deployment

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Dec 7;8(48):33112-33120. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b12175. Epub 2016 Nov 23.

Authors

Yujie Ke¹, Igal Balin², Ning Wang¹, Qi Lu¹, Alfred Iing Yoong Tok¹, Timothy J White¹, Shlomo Magdassi³, Ibrahim Abdulhalim², Yi Long¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University , 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
² Department of Electro-optical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
³ Casali Center of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Jerusalem 91904, Israel.

PMID: 27934184
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b12175

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) photonic structures, widely used for generating photonic band gaps (PBG) in a variety of materials, are for the first time integrated with the temperature-dependent phase change of vanadium dioxide (VO₂). VO₂ possesses thermochromic properties, whose potential remains unrealized due to an undesirable yellow-brown color. Here, a SiO₂/VO₂ core/shell 2D photonic crystal is demonstrated to exhibit static visible light tunability and dynamic near-infrared (NIR) modulation. Three-dimensional (3D) finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations predict that the transmittance can be tuned across the visible spectrum, while maintaining good solar regulation efficiency (ΔT_sol = 11.0%) and high solar transmittance (T_lum = 49.6%). Experiments show that the color changes of VO₂ films are accompanied by NIR modulation. This work presents a novel way to manipulate VO₂ photonic structures to modulate light transmission as a function of wavelength at different temperatures.

Keywords: 2D nanostructure; FDTD; color change; photonic crystal; thermochromic; vanadium dioxide.