Research into a material that can transform from opaque to transparent draws the interest of companies as Cambridge Enterprise commercialises the work.
Cambridge Enterprise, the tech transfer arm of Cambridge University, has been working with researchers to commercialise their transparent to opaque switching smart glass, according to Cambridge News.
The material, called Smectic A, has been developed at the Department of Engineering ‘s Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics. It is able to change from transparent to opaque, and stages in-between, as a user requires.
According to the researchers, the material can make this change up to a million times and will remain in any chosen state for as long as needed.
This technology can be applied to, for example, buildings, to provide dynamic window tinting throughout the day, and to cars, to reduce the need for air conditioning.
Cambridge has been working with commercial partners such as Dow Corning, a US-based silicone and silicon-based technology company, to bring the technology to market.
Daping Chu, one of the researchers, said: “The earlier glass-based samples we produced worked well, but there was a challenge in making them in sizes larger than a metre square.
“So we started making it in plastic, which meant we could make bigger samples, and attach it to things like windows in order to retrofit them. This would reduce the effects of solar radiation, since the energy is being scattered rather than absorbed.”
