Optical properties of SiO2/VO2/TiO2 nanostructures by computational optical model

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) has drawn great attention as a thermochromic material for smart windows due to its unique temperature dependent metal-insulator transition (MIT) and corresponding tunable optical properties. In this study, MNPBEM, a Matlab toolbox, was used for simulation of the optical properties of a core/shell/shell nanostructure of SiO2/VO2/TiO2 by using a boundary element method (BEM). The light absorption of the proposed structure with varying core size and shells thicknesses were investigated. In this study, the luminous transmittance and solar transmittance modulation have been significantly improved by using the structure of 150 nm SiO2 core in diameter with a 60 nm thick inner shell VO2 and a 10 nm thick outer shell TiO2.