Engineers at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland demonstrate in a new study that windows made of transparent1 wood could provide more even and consistent natural lighting2 and better energy efficiency than glass. In a paper just published in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Energy Materials, the team, headed by Liangbing Hu of UMDs Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Energy Research Center lay out research showing that their transparent wood provides better thermal3 insulation4 and lets in nearly as much light as glass, while eliminating glare and providing uniform and consistent indoor lighting. The findings advance earlier published work on their development of transparent wood.The transparent wood lets through just a little bit less light than glass, but a lot less heat, said Tian Li, the lead author of the new study. It is very transparent, but still allows for a little bit of privacy because it is not completely see-through. We also learned that the channels in the wood transmit light with wavelengths5 around the range of the wavelengths of visible light, but that it blocks the wavelengths that carry mostly heat, said Li.The teams findings were derived6, in part, from tests on tiny model house with a transparent wood panel in the ceiling that the team built. The tests showed that the light was more evenly distributed around a space with a transparent wood roof than a glass roof.The channels in the wood direct visible light straight through the material, but the cell structure that still remains7 bounces the light around just a little bit, a property called haze8. This means the light does not shine directly into your eyes, making it more comfortable to look at. The team photographed the transparent woods cell structure in the University of Marylands Advanced Imaging and Microscopy Lab.Transparent wood still has all the cell structures that comprised the original piece of wood. The wood is cut against the grain, so that the channels that drew water and nutrients9 up from the roots lie along the shortest dimension of the window. The new transparent wood uses theses natural channels in wood to guide the sunlight through the wood.
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1 transparent adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 参考例句： The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。 The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。
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