Designing and Fabrication of Electrochromic Windows Using Tungsten Oxide Films Prepared Through Sol-gel Coating on a Glass

Abstract

In this study, a sol-gel peroxotungstic acid sol was employed to deposit tungsten oxide (WO3) films by the spin-coating technique. In view of smart window applications, electrochromic windows were then designed and fabricated using a thin tungsten oxide film. For this purpose, Glass/ FTO/ WO3/ electrolyte/ FTO/Glass could be of use due to its special structure that consists of an electrochromic layer (WO3) on a transparent conductor (FTO), an electrolyte containing Li + cations, and a transparent conductor layer. A voltage was applied on the fabricated sample, which was later assesed for its transmission, switching speed, and coloration efficiency. An increase in the coloration efficiency from 87 cm 2 /C -1 to 99.1 cm 2 /C -1 was found associated with an increase in the deposition speed. Moreover, the increase in the deposition speed led to a decrease in the coloration and bleaching time duration from 11.4 s to 6.2 s and from 12.8 s to 5.2 s respectively. The results obtained on the thin film WO3 can be useful for electrochromic applications.

Tunable thermochromism in V2O5 films deposited by cathodic vacuum arc method by tailoring the oxygen deficiency

“…Creating oxygen vacancies which is analogous to self dopingis another effective way of altering the optical properties of TMOs [17][18][19]. Such optical properties will be stable so far the oxygen vacancies are maintained.…”