Colored Designs for Radiative Cooling: Progress and Perspectives

Radiative cooling, a passive and sustainable technology that dissipates heat without energy consumption, holds great promise for efficient thermal management across various applications, including buildings, electronics, cold-chain transportation, and personal thermal comfort. Despite extensive efforts, most current radiative coolers predominantly feature white or silver surfaces due to their high solar reflectivity requirement for enhanced daytime cooling performance, which restricts their aesthetic appeal and versatility in diverse settings. To address this limitation, a new class of colored radiative coolers (CRCs) emerges as a significant breakthrough to balance color display with cooling efficiency. This advancement is enabled by a fascinating design philosophy that emphasizes selective narrow-band absorption in the visible light spectrum to show the desired color while maintaining a high reflectivity in other solar wavelengths to reduce thermal absorption. In this Perspective paper, a brief introduction to the fundamental principles of colored radiative cooling is first provided. Then, recent progress in CRCs is reviewed, focusing on colored designs utilizing pigments, photonic structures, and field stimulations. Finally, the challenges and future prospects in CRCs are outlined, advocating for their further advancement and widespread integration into practical applications. © 2025 Wiley-VCH GmbH.