Glass is ubiquitous in everyday life. Being highly transparent, stable and durable, it’s an important material for a myriad of applications, from simple windows to touch screens on our latest gadgets to photonic components for hi-tech sensors.
The most common glasses are made from silica, lime and soda. But for centuries additional ingredients have been added to glass to confer properties such as colour and heat-resistance. And researchers are still working on glass, seeking to give it further functionality and improve its performance for specific tasks, creating increasingly hi-tech glass and what could be referred to as “smart” glass.
Smart materials aren’t easy to define, but broadly they are designed to respond in a specific way to external stimuli. In terms of glass, the most obvious “smart” application is for windows – in particular, controlling the amount of light that passes through the glass. That way we can boost the energy efficiency of any building: reducing the heat in the summer, while keeping it warm in colder weather.
