Photoelectric-coupled multilayer smart glass synergistically regulated with doped nanoparticles of GaAs and IST phase change layers

Windows are the main part of the building energy exchange. Most of the solar energy that passes through the windows is reflected or converted into heat loss, which causes a great waste of energy. To improve the energy utilization, this work presents the design of a multilayer glass with a GaAs layer doped by nanoparticles and an IST (In₃SbTe₂) phase change layer. The dielectric function of the doped layer is obtained by the Maxwell-Garnett effective medium theory. The transmittance and the photoelectric conversion efficiency are calculated through the transfer matrix method. With the genetic algorithm, the structure parameters are optimized to achieve the high values of both average transmittance in human-eye response band and photoelectric conversion energy. The average transmittance of the human eye response band for the structure containing only GaAs doped layer reaches 0.5–0.6, and the average photovoltaic conversion efficiency is above 0.2. After adding the IST phase change layer, the difference of ranges of the spectral regulation between the two phases in the metal nanoparticle doped structure can reach more than 0.25. The light transmission regulation is realized by active phase change. This work provides an optimization-based analysis approach and a possible design of the multilayer smart glass.