Research Information System
ICLLT-2025 5TH International Conference on Light and Light-based Technologies, Ankara, Turkey, 15 - 17 May 2025, pp.26, (Summary Text)
New Trends in Electrochromic Devices
Özlem Duyar Coşkun
Department of Physics Engineering, Hacettepe University, Türkiye
email: duyar@hacettepe.edu.tr
Abstract: The electrochromic (EC) materials and devices (ECDs) possess a reversible change in the optical properties like their transmission, reflection and/or absorption) of electrochromic materials under an applied external voltage. Electrochromic devices (ECDs) have recently gained prominence with their applications in many promising technologies such as smart glasses, low-power displays, and wearable electronics. The general structure of an ECD in full-cell configuration consists of the conductive layer grown on a substrate, an electrochromic layer, and a counter electrode layer in sandwich configuration separated by an ion conducting layer called as electrolyte.
In particular, ECDs using solid electrolytes and the search for different TCOs for being free of indium tin oxide (ITO) are important for the advancement of these technologies. This study will focus on the materials used in ECDs, device configurations, and applications, and will highlight the key issues and development trends on ECDs.
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most widely used conductive material due to its high conductivity and transparency, but due to increasing global demand, indium has become a rare and expensive resource for applications in various technological fields. Graphene has recently been attracting great interest for being used as a transparent conductive layer in ECDs.
The ion conducting layer can be liquid, gel or solid inorganic materials. The most important disadvantage of liquid and gel ion conductive layers is their leakage. Studies are ongoing to use metal oxides such as Ta2O5, ZrO2 and lithium-containing inorganic materials such as LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 due to their good physicochemical stability and high optical transmission to eliminate leakage.