The recent progress in radiative cooling shows exciting promises for achieving sub-ambient refrigeration by tapping the cooling potential from deep space. Spectrally selective materials have been the core of these high-efficiency thermal energy harvesting, in both radiative cooling and solar heating. As many successful demonstrations made their way into practical thermal engineering, multifunctionality became increasingly important. For example, how do we deal with the spatiotemporal variation of the environment and demand? How do we design the next generation of high-performance radiative heat management devices with promising paths for large-scale deployment? How do we co-develop photonic designs and materials science to achieve novel properties? In this talk, I will give an overview of radiative cooling and heating and its impact on sustainability and human-building-energy nexus. I will introduce recent examples of multifunctional photonic thermal engineering from colleagues and my group, including multispectral selectivity, dynamic tunability, angular selectivity, and near-perfect emitters.
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