Liquid crystal smart window with bistable and dynamic modes

Smart windows provide electrical control over light transmission to promote energy efficiency, architectural aesthetics, and environmental comfort in buildings, offices, and conveyances. However, most smart windows consume significant amounts of power to maintain their scattering or transparent states. To address this issue, a gelator-doped liquid crystal (LC) smart window with bistable and dynamic modes is introduced in this study. In the dynamic mode, the transmittance of the gelator-doped LC film can be controlled by applying a low voltage ranging from 0 to 5 V. Meanwhile, the bistable mode enables the LC smart window to switch between the field-free scattering and transparent states via a pulse voltage and temperature manipulation. Compared to other smart window systems, the proposed LC smart window can more efficiently save energy than other smart window systems.