A Passive Daytime Colored Radiative Cooler with DBR-Engineered Color Selectivity

Abstract

Passive daytime colored radiative cooling (PDCRC) offers an attractive approach to thermal management while enabling structural coloration. However, achieving both strong daytime cooling and vivid, stable colors remains challenging. Here, we propose a lithography-free PDCRC comprising a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) emitter, SiC/SiO2 distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), MgF2 spacer, and Ag back reflector. The DBR and MgF2 spacer enable selective visible-spectrum reflection for cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) color generation, while the PDMS layer provides strong thermal emission within the atmospheric transparency window (8-14 micrometers). Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, validated using the transfer matrix method (TMM), yield an average emissivity of 92% in the atmospheric window and an average reflectivity of 93.3% over 0.75-6 micrometers. CIE 1931 chromaticity analysis confirms high-contrast CMY colors with low color differences from standard subtractive primary colors. Under daytime conditions with a heat-transfer coefficient of 6 W m-2 K-1, the proposed cooler achieves cooling powers of approximately 140-145 W m-2 and a temperature reduction of about 12 degrees C below ambient. The color characteristics remain stable over a broad range of incidence angles, with only a gradual reduction in color intensity at larger angles, while the spectral response remains nearly insensitive to TE and TM polarizations. Simulations using meteorological conditions from different global cities further demonstrate robust cooling performance under diverse environmental conditions. The combination of high cooling performance, vivid coloration, simple multilayer architecture, and fabrication feasibility makes the proposed PDCRC promising for energy-efficient thermal management in buildings, vehicle coatings, wearable devices, and other outdoor applications.