Tan Ming-Yue, Thien Gregory Soon How, Tan Kar-Ban, Murthy H C Ananda, Chan Kah-Yoong
Centre for Advanced Devices and Systems, Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Persiaran Multimedia, 63100, Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 7;15(1):1184. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-85014-7.
In recent decades, poorly insulated windows have increased the energy consumption of heating and cooling systems, thus contributing to excessive carbon dioxide emissions and other related pollution issues. From this perspective, the electrochromic (EC) windows could be a tangible solution as the indoor conditions are highly controllable by these smart devices even at a low applied voltage. Literally, vanadium pentoxide (VO) is a renowned candidate for the EC application due to its multicolor appearance and substantial lithium insertion capacity. Despite the growing interest in VO thin films, only limited literature study is available for VO films specifically the annealing effects of these films at lower temperatures (< 300 °C). It is noteworthy that a low temperature is advantageous for glass-based EC devices, as it prevents deformation, cracking, and structural damage to the transparent conductive glass. In this study, VO thin films were fabricated using the sol-gel spin coating technique prior to annealing over the temperature range of 100-300 °C. Subsequently, VO thin films were assembled into a device form to analyze their EC characteristics. The VO device, featuring thin film annealed at 200 °C, demonstrated excellent EC performance with high optical contrast of 42.32%, high coloration efficiency (CE) of 34.93 cm/C, as well as rapid coloring and bleaching times of 0.4 s and 3 s, respectively. These results shed light on the importance of annealing temperature control towards the EC performance of VO devices for future applications.
近几十年来，窗户隔热性能差增加了供暖和制冷系统的能源消耗，从而导致过量的二氧化碳排放及其他相关污染问题。从这个角度来看，电致变色（EC）窗户可能是一个切实可行的解决方案，因为即使在低施加电压下，这些智能设备也能高度控制室内环境。确切地说，五氧化二钒（VO）因其多色外观和较大的锂嵌入容量，是电致变色应用中一个著名的候选材料。尽管对VO薄膜的兴趣日益浓厚，但关于VO薄膜的文献研究有限，特别是这些薄膜在较低温度（<300°C）下的退火效果。值得注意的是，低温对基于玻璃的电致变色器件有利，因为它可以防止透明导电玻璃变形、开裂和结构损坏。在本研究中，采用溶胶 - 凝胶旋涂技术制备VO薄膜，然后在100 - 300°C的温度范围内进行退火。随后，将VO薄膜组装成器件形式以分析其电致变色特性。以在200°C退火的薄膜为特征的VO器件表现出优异的电致变色性能，具有42.32%的高光学对比度、34.93 cm/C的高着色效率（CE），以及分别为0.4秒和3秒的快速着色和漂白时间。这些结果揭示了控制退火温度对VO器件未来应用的电致变色性能的重要性。
