New Advances in Smart Windows—Materials, Technologies, and Applications
A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Smart Materials".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2026 | Viewed by 91
Special Issue Editors
Interests: liquid crystals; polymer; light-responsive and multi-stimuli-responsive smart materials and devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: liquid crystal; polymer; display devices; optics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As global energy demand continues to rise and the pursuit of carbon neutrality intensifies, smart windows have emerged as a transformative platform at the intersection of materials science, energy efficiency, and sustainable architecture. By dynamically modulating light and heat transmission in response to external stimuli, smart windows offer unprecedented potential to reduce building energy consumption, enhance indoor comfort, and enable intelligent environmental control—positioning them as a critical component in next-generation smart cars, green buildings and smart cities.
Globally, research in this field is advancing rapidly, shifting from single-function devices toward multifunctional, stimuli-responsive systems that integrate electrochromism, thermochromism, photochromism, and emerging mechanisms such as ion intercalation, liquid crystal alignment, and radiative cooling. Despite significant progress, several challenges remain. These include improving switching speed and optical modulation range, ensuring long-term operational stability under real-world conditions, and developing scalable and cost-effective manufacturing processes. Addressing these challenges presents exciting opportunities for innovation in materials design, nanofabrication, device engineering, and system-level integration.
This Special Issue arrives at a pivotal moment, as advances in materials chemistry, nanotechnology, and device architecture converge to bridge the gap between laboratory breakthroughs and practical deployment. This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to smart window research—from fundamental material discovery and mechanistic insights to device fabrication, performance optimization, and real-world applications. By bringing together cutting-edge work from interdisciplinary communities, this issue aims to accelerate the translation of academic innovation into impactful technologies that shape the future of sustainable architecture and smart cars.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Advances in materials for smart windows;
- Advances in device fabrication for smart windows;
- Advances in performance optimization for smart windows.
Dr. Cheng Zou
Dr. Meina Yu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- smart windows
- liquid crystal
- hydrogel
- electrochromism
- radiative cooling
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