Daytime radiative cooling using pattern free metal dielectric coating

Radiative coolers, which dumps the excess heat to the cold outer space by releasing the thermal radiation through the atmospheric window, have offered an alternate and feasible solution to the conventional coolers that are fuelled on the electricity produced by either using renewal or non-renewal sources like fossil fuels. Particularly, daytime passive radiative coolers have paved the way for many energy free technology that are used in reducing the temperature of building tops, power plants, and water harvesting. In this, we propose a pattern free and large area scalable bi-layered thin film based daytime radiative cooler. The proposed design illustrates an average reflectivity of 98.5% for the solar spectrum, while showing average emittance of 91% within the atmospheric window (8-13μm). The design consists of thin films of transparent dielectrics such as ZnS or BaF2 placed on top of a thick glass substrate, that is backed by a thin film of silver. We theoretically obtained a cooling power of 119 W m−2 with a temperature reduction of 9 °C below the ambient.