A clear coating that turns ordinary windows into quiet power plants just cleared its first big test. Researchers at Nanjing University built a colorless, unidirectional solar concentrator that paints onto glass, keeps the view intact, and routes part of the sunlight to slim photovoltaic strips hidden along the pane’s edge.
The trick lies in cholesteric liquid crystals, a class of layered, helix-shaped materials that interact with light in precise ways. Stacked into ultrathin films, they selectively diffract one polarization of light, then steer those photons into the glass like a waveguide, where edge-mounted cells convert them to electricity. In plain English, most light passes through as normal, while a targeted slice is siphoned sideways for power.
Clarity holds up. Lab measurements show about 64.2 percent visible light transmission and a 91.3 percent color rendering index, so scenes look natural. Under green laser tests, up to 38.1 percent of incident energy was captured at the edges, and under full-spectrum conditions, the optical guiding efficiency reached 18.1 percent. A one-inch demo powered a 10-milliwatt fan outdoors, proving the idea works in practice.
Scale matters here, and the outlook is practical. Modeling suggests a two-meter-wide coated window could concentrate sunlight roughly 50×, cutting required solar cell area by as much as 75 percent. The films are made via photoalignment and polymerization, compatible with roll-to-roll manufacturing, and designed for durable retrofits onto existing glass. Researchers also stress the long-term stability of the design, noting it can withstand environmental exposure while remaining cost effective and visually unobtrusive.
Today’s system reports a modest 3.7 percent power conversion efficiency, but it can pair with high-performance cells like gallium arsenide and is engineered for steady gains. If windows become generators, architecture turns into infrastructure, and cities start harvesting the daylight they already own.
#tech #solar #renewableenergy #cleantech #architecture #materials #liquidcrystals #sustainability #energyefficiency
Source: 10.1186/s43074-025-00178-3
A clear coating that turns ordinary windows into quiet power plants just cleared its first big test. Researchers at Nanjing University built a colorless, unidirectional solar concentrator that paints onto glass, keeps the view intact, and routes part of the sunlight to slim photovoltaic strips hidden along the pane’s edge.
The trick lies in cholesteric liquid crystals, a class of layered, helix-shaped materials that interact with light in precise ways. Stacked into ultrathin films, they selectively diffract one polarization of light, then steer those photons into the glass like a waveguide, where edge-mounted cells convert them to electricity. In plain English, most light passes through as normal, while a targeted slice is siphoned sideways for power.
Clarity holds up. Lab measurements show about 64.2 percent visible light transmission and a 91.3 percent color rendering index, so scenes look natural. Under green laser tests, up to 38.1 percent of incident energy was captured at the edges, and under full-spectrum conditions, the optical guiding efficiency reached 18.1 percent. A one-inch demo powered a 10-milliwatt fan outdoors, proving the idea works in practice.
Scale matters here, and the outlook is practical. Modeling suggests a two-meter-wide coated window could concentrate sunlight roughly 50×, cutting required solar cell area by as much as 75 percent. The films are made via photoalignment and polymerization, compatible with roll-to-roll manufacturing, and designed for durable retrofits onto existing glass. Researchers also stress the long-term stability of the design, noting it can withstand environmental exposure while remaining cost effective and visually unobtrusive.
Today’s system reports a modest 3.7 percent power conversion efficiency, but it can pair with high-performance cells like gallium arsenide and is engineered for steady gains. If windows become generators, architecture turns into infrastructure, and cities start harvesting the daylight they already own.
#tech #solar #renewableenergy #cleantech #architecture #materials #liquidcrystals #sustainability #energyefficiency
Source: 10.1186/s43074-025-00178-3
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