Abstract:
The unique optical properties of gold nanorods,
which exhibit tuneable absorption as a function of
their aspect ratio, suggest that they might have
potential applications in coatings for solar control on
windows. Here we explore the properties of coatings
produced by attaching gold nanorods to the surface
of glass. Such coatings can attenuate solar radiation
effectively, even at very low gold contents, but the
figure-of-merit, Tvis/Tsol, of our experimental coatings
was close to unity, indicating that they are not
spectrally selective, However, calculations are
presented to show how coatings comprised of a blend
of rods with aspect ratios of greater than 3 can
produce coatings with Tvis/Tsol of up to at least 1.4.
The maximum value possible for perfectly spectrallyselective
coating in sunlight is 2.08. Unfortunately,
the practical realization of such coatings requires
the further development of reliable methods
to scale up the production of gold nanorods of
longer aspect ratios.
