Combining the concepts of smart windows and transparent displays enables compact smart window displays, usable both for modulating the flow of outdoor light into a building and as screens. Like smart windows, such devices should integrate a material whose transparency to visible light can be tuned reversibly from near 100% (transparent state) to 0% (black state). Like transparent displays, they should integrate an electroluminescent material transparent at visible frequencies and be able to emit visible light.

Gyeong Woo Kim and coworkers report a smart window display architecture consisting of two thin multilayer structures bonded together. One of the structures, based on an electrolyte containing an electrochromic fluoran dye, provides the smart window functionality under electrical control at low applied voltages, with fast response and full reversibility over tens of thousands of cycles. The other structure, based on a white light-emitting transparent OLED, provides the transparent display functionality. Besides its excellent performance as smart window and transparent display, the reported architecture enables a hybrid operation where the OLED emits light while the smart window structure is in its black state. This yields a near two-fold enhanced visibility of the displayed images when compared with a transparent display.

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