Commercial buildings in the U.S. spend US$180 billion on energy annually. This is one reason Stanford University researchers developed a process to help cool the buildings and limit the use of air conditioning.

Researchers developed an advanced rooftop mirror or an integrated photonic solar reflector that can bounce solar heat back into the space.

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This energy-saving breakthrough was developed by a team led by Professor Shanhui Fan and Aaswath Raman. It can decrease the temperature inside a building by up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit.

The new experimental material can do two things: it reflects sunlight and heat skywards and cools the building without using electricity.

The rooftop mirror, as cited by CNET, is made up of a film thinner than the "slimmest aluminum foil." It consists of multi-layers of Hafnium Oxide (HfO2) and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) atop a thin layer of silver.

"These layers are not a uniform thickness, but are instead engineered to create a new material. Its internal structure is tuned to radiate infrared rays at a frequency that lets them pass into space without warming the air near the building," reported the researchers

"Every object that produces heat has to dump that heat into a heat sink," said Fan/

"What we've done is to create a way that should allow us to use the coldness of the universe as a heat sink during the day."

The federal government's Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) backed this project.

TagsSpace, Space news, Heat on Space, Rooftop Mirrors, Advanced Mirrors, Rooftop Reflectors, air conditioning, Cooling Buildings, Energy Saving, solar energy, Research, New Discoveries, New Technology, Stanford University