designing and fabrication of electrochromic windows using tungsten oxide films prepared through sol-gel coating on a glass

In this study, a sol-gel peroxotungstic acid sol was employed to deposit tungsten oxide (wo3) films by the spin-coating technique. in view of smart window applications, electrochromic windows were then designed and fabricated using a thin tungsten oxide film. for this purpose, glass/ fto/ wo3/ electrolyte/ fto/glass could be of use due to its special structure that consists of an electrochromic layer (wo3) on a transparent conductor (fto), an electrolyte containing li+ cations, and a transparent conductor layer. a voltage was applied on the fabricated sample, which was later assesed for its transmission, switching speed, and coloration efficiency. an increase in the coloration efficiency from 87 cm²/c^-1 to 99.1 cm²/c^-1 was found associated with an increase in the deposition speed. moreover, the increase in the deposition speed led to a decrease in the coloration and bleaching time duration from 11.4 s to 6.2 s and from 12.8 s to 5.2 s respectively. the results obtained on the thin film wo3 can be useful for electrochromic applications.