Ohio Patent of the Month – January 2022
In order to protect children, schools have implemented protocols for a variety of potential emergencies. In the case of a school shooting, people inside a classroom are meant to physically block the windows that look into the room from the hallway. Unfortunately, this step requires fast action and time when there may not be much time and blocks the view in both directions. This means, the teacher in the room cannot anticipate or react to events in the hall and may put students at additional risk.
AlphaMicron Inc., a global leader in liquid crystal photonics, has set out to improve student and teacher safety by improving this protocol. They have designed a rapid-change, switchable one-way mirror. This mirror is made with a switchable film that can reduce transmission of light, changing a regular window into a one-way mirror.
The film is made of a switchable electro-optic layer. The film has two states, one being transmissive and the other being opaque. When in a transmissive state, the light can be equally transmitted through the mirror from either side. The opaque state reduces the light going through from one side, changing the ratio between light transmission and turning one side into a reflective mirror. To switch between states, a controller modifies the voltage which impacts transmissivity. In the case of AlphaMicron’s liquid crystals, the voltage changes the orientation of the crystal material. With precision control, the mirror can achieve a complete opaque state, a completely transparent state, or states in between (eg. light scattering).
In the case of a school shooting, the teacher – or even a student- could simply flip a switch on the controller, immediately changing the windows to one-way mirrors. This prevents any perpetrator from seeing into the class without leaving the teacher unaware of who is in the hallway.
Ofcourse, this mirror system is not limited to school safety. Switchable windows/mirrors could be used in car sunroofs, glasses, augmented reality, and architectural purposes.
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