Photo- and Thermo-chromic Dual-responsive Materials: A Review on Design Strategies and Applications in Smart Windows

With the continuous growth of the global population and the accelerated advancement of industrialization, energy consumption within the construction sector has been rising steadily.Energy conservation and consumption reduction have become a key task for the construction field to achieve the "dual carbon" goals.As a central component for photothermal exchange within buildings, the thermal insulation and daylighting performance of windows directly determine the energy consumption for regulating the indoor thermal environment, and play a decisive role in the overall energy-saving efficiency of buildings.Traditional energy-saving windows are limited by their static structure, rendering them ill-suited to adapt to changing environment.Smart windows with single-stimulus response, characterized by their singular regulation mode, cannot meet the diversified energy-saving demands.In contrast, photo-thermal dual-responsive smart windows can simultaneously and accurately respond to changes in external light intensity and temperature,