May 6, 2013: Solar Reflective Device Can Cool Buildings in Full Sunlight
STANFORD, Calif. — A team of researchers at Stanford University has designed a new type of solar reflective device that has the ability to cool even in full sunlight. Such a device could greatly improve the daylight cooling of buildings by reflecting sunlight away and back into space. A paper describing the device was published in Nano Letters.
“People usually see space as a source of heat from the sun, but away from the sun outer space is really a cold, cold place,” said Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering and the paper’s senior author. “We’ve developed a new type of structure that reflects the vast majority of sunlight, while at the same time it sends heat into that coldness, which cools man-made structures even in the daytime.”