Smart glass electrochromic device fabrication of uniform tungsten oxide films from its powder synthesized by solution combustion method

Abstract

Recently, there has been renewed interest in tungsten oxide based electrochromic (EC) materials. A variety of studies related to these materials have been reported, however, no serious studies so far have been reported on the electrochromic effect of tungsten oxide that is synthesized by solution combustion method. The major advantage of this process is the ease and simplicity with preparing nanosize oxides. Herein, the principal objective of this project was to produce uniform and adhesive tungsten oxide thin films from as-synthesized powder by solution combustion route for EC device. Although extensive research has been carried out on EC properties of tungsten oxide, limited study exists in e-beam evaporated tungsten oxide thin film studies for smart window application. Therefore, tungsten oxide thin films were deposited from our own produced powder by e-beam evaporation. To present the effect of new powder on the properties of the thin films, their physical and morphological properties were compared with thin film deposited by commercial tungsten oxide powder. Finally, electrochemical and optical characteristics of an all-solid-state EC device with a structure of glass/ITO/SCS-WO3/Nafion/ITO/glass with high optical transmittance modulation (63% at 550 nm) was fabricated. This study has been one of the first attempts to thoroughly examine in detail of tungsten oxide powder synthesized by solution combustion method for EC active layer. These findings contribute in several ways to our understanding of solution combustion synthesized powder to be used for production of EC active layer of thin film and provide a basis for developing and designing energy-efficient EC active materials and devices.