Stainless-Steel Thin Film as Passive Radiative Cooling Materials

Spectrally selective glazing system attracts great attention for energy efficient radiator applications. The present work reports the possibility of a specific shield (Stainless steel/Borosilicate glass) to provide passive cooling for the purpose of reducing the use of classical active method. Radiative cooling devices require a convective shield that blocks all incoming solar radiation, but should selectively reemit radiation in the “atmospheric-window” region. In this study, borosilicate glass substrate coated with a stainless steel thin film was prepared by thermal evaporation and low pressure (6.3 × 10-3 bar) DC plasma sputtering, in order to achieve the radiative cooling effect. The optical properties of the optimal thickness thin film were measured in the wavelength range of 0.3-20 μm by an OL-750 double-beam spectroradiometer. The thin film has high visible band reflectance with high infrared band emissivity across the full 8-13 μm; which indicates that stainless steel thin film can be used as good radiative cooling material.