Smart curtains react to light using nanotubes

Smart curtains do not need you to actually get up from your favorite lounging chair to close or open it, as it has the capabilities of preventing too much light from coming in whenever it is exposed to light. This was made possible thanks to the efforts by the folks over at the University of California Berkeley, who have managed to come up with a new kind of material that allows the nanotubes embedded within to activate whenever they are exposed to light.

Asimov might have predicted polarized windows for the year of 2014, but he didn’t envision a future with curtains that respond to light using carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of carbon atoms no larger than a single strand of hair. Scientists at the University of California Berkeley have developed a material with these nanotubes that activates when exposed to light. This research team started with a thin light-activated material of plastic polycarbonate and layered carbon nanotubes on its surface.