Leland Stanford Junior University

Zhen Chen

Shanhui Fan

Yu Shi

Aaswath Pattabhi Raman

Linxiao Zhu

Eli Goldstein

Wei Li

An apparatus includes a substrate, at least one type of tuning material, and a composite material. The substrate has an interface surface or material that manifests, in response to light in a color spectrum, a particular color and a first thermal load. The particular color is associated with the first thermal load. The at least one type of tuning material manifests, in response to light in the color spectrum, the particular color and a second thermal load. The particular color is associated with the second thermal load. The first thermal load is different from the second thermal load. The composite material includes the interface surface or material and the at least one type of tuning material. The composite material manifests, in response to light in the color spectrum, the particular color and a tuned thermal load which is different than the first thermal load and the second thermal load.

Apparatuses and methods involving thermally tuned composite material

A radiative cooler is provided having a thermally insulated vacuum chamber housing that is configured to support a vacuum level of at least 10Torr, an infared-transparent window that is sealably disposed on top of the thermally insulated vacuum chamber and is transparet in the range of 8-13 &#x3bc;m, a selective emitter disposed inside the chamber, a mirror cone on the infared-transparent window, a selective emitter inside the chamber and is configured to passively dissipate heat from the earth into outer space through the infared-transparent window and is thermally decoupled from ambient air and solar irradiation but coupled to outer space, a heat exchanger with inlet and outlet pipes disposed below the selective emitter to cool water flowing through the pipe, a sun shade disposed vertically outside the chamber to minimize direct solar irradiation, and a mirror cone to minimize downward atmospheric radiation.

Ultrahigh-performance radiative cooler

Growing community of inventors

Stanford, CA, United States of America

Zhen Chen