Active Windows with Micro Mirror Arrays for Improved Utilization of Daylight in Buildings
Abstract
Using daylight is a gratuitous and maybe the most beneficial and highly valuable way of indoor lighting: it provides the highest spectral quality and high comfort at the lowest level of energy consumption at the same time, since it derives from pure renewable energy. Nevertheless, direct collecting of solar energy through windows is still inadequately applied and keeps huge idle potentials. The photomontage (Fig. 1) shows the vision: living and working rooms can be equipped with intelligent systems based on tens of millions of micro mirrors, implemented between the panes of conventional window glazing. Groups of mirrors can be switched from an open to a closed state, so that segments of the window can either guide daylight into the room or keep it outside.