Sustainable radiative cooling

This topic has an ambitious goal of effectively harvesting the coldness of the universe for renewable and sustainable future cooling. The passive nature of radiative cooling (RC) technology makes RC highly attractive, as cooling occurs without the need for electricity, refrigerants, or compressors that require maintenance.

This project explores novel polymer-based micro-photonic multi-functional metamaterials (PMMM) that are scalable, self-cleaning, flexible, and cost-effective for RC. We focus on two types of RC materials, i.e., highly-transparent and highly-reflective, targeting various application backgrounds.

This project explores the potential of applying the PMMM to the applications of cooling buildings, cars and/or extra-terrestrial photovoltaics (e.g., photovoltaics on satellites or space stations). The research is conducted via both experimental and simulation methods.