Amorphous Tungsten Oxide Nanodots for Chromatic Applications
Pengcheng Liu, Bin Wang, Chengchao Wang, Lanxin Ma, Wu Zhang, Eric Hopmann, Linhua Liu, A. Y. Elezzabi, Haizeng Li
Abstract
Abstract Amorphous tungsten oxide (WO 3 ) is widely exploited in the fields of photochromism and electrochromism. Despite its widespread use, the tractable synthesis of amorphous WO 3 nanodots is still on the drawing board, even though the WO 3 nanodots possess superior chromatic performance owing to their large surface‐to‐volume ratio. Therefore, a new efficient strategy to synthesize amorphous WO 3 nanodots, which exhibit both excellent electrochromic and photochromic properties, is reported. For the first time, the ligand effects of the amorphous WO 3 nanodots on chromatic applications are elucidated. The presence of the ligand on amorphous WO 3 nanodots inhibits the electrochromic color switching, while promoting photochromic performance. As a proof of concept, zinc‐WO 3 electrochromic devices, WO 3 ‐polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) transparent hydrogels, and PVA/WO 3 textiles are prepared for diverse rapid‐switching chromatic applications. These results present a new strategy for the synthesis of widely used amorphous WO 3 nanodots and open new opportunities for the development of WO 3 ‐based chromatic applications.