David Needell
PhD Candidate, EAS
Maggie Potter
PhD Candidate, EAS

As our phones and homes and cars advance into a "smart" era of autonomy, the same cannot yet be said for the vast majority of windows. In fact, a significant portion of our building's energy budget goes into heating or cooling caused by the thermal leakage of most windows.

Here we show an artistic rendering of a close-up view of a smart window -- one that can dim or brighten itself by learning weather patterns and user input. The small, dark cubes patterning the surface are, in reality, smaller than a single grain of sand. These cubes are really solar cells that can power the window to change transparencies and even color.

dneedell@caltech.edu