So much for old-fashioned air conditioning : What if you could harness the universe to cool your house ? Some Stanford University engineers may have figured out how to do just that . According to a paper in the scientific journal Nature , a team led by Stanford electrical engineer Shanhui Fan has come up with a material that can radiate heat away from buildings and send it directly into space . The wafer-thin material -- just 1.8 microns thick , about 50 times thinner than a piece of paper -- is made up of layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide on top of a layer of silver . It both acts as a mirror , reflecting sunlight back into space , and channels invisible , heat-bearing infrared rays away from the source and into the universe . `` Think about it like having a window into space , '' Fan told the Stanford Report . The Stanford team calls it `` photonic radiative cooling , '' and if the material is applied to surfaces such as rooftops , it could help lower the need for air conditioning . In tests , the material was capable of cooling a surface by 5 degrees Celsius ( about 9 degrees Fahrenheit ) . `` This team has shown how to passively cool structures by simply radiating heat into the cold darkness of space , '' Nobel Prize-winning physicist Burton Richter , a Stanford professor emeritus , told the Stanford Report . The scientists note that air conditioning currently accounts for about 15 % of energy usage in buildings . Moreover , in rural and undeveloped areas , the material could provide a cooling technology that does n't require electricity , observes Aaswath Raman , who was part of the research team . `` Across the developing world , photonic radiative cooling makes off-grid cooling a possibility in rural regions , in addition to meeting skyrocketing demand for air conditioning in urban areas , '' he told the Stanford Report . There are still obstacles , of course . The team believes production of the material can be ramped up into rooftop-appropriate sizes , but right now it exists only as a relatively small prototype . Moreover , the researchers are uncertain how to conduct heat from a building 's interior to the material so it can be sent into space . But the scientists are optimistic . After all , the universe is vast and very , very cold : about 3 degrees above absolute zero , to be precise . Radiating our heat directly into space could help solve a number of problems on Earth , Fan told the Stanford Report . `` Every object that produces heat has to dump that heat into a heat sink , '' he said . `` 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 . ''
Stanford scientists create material that reflects sunlight into space . Material is ultrathin and acts as both visible and infrared radiator . If applied to building rooftops , could significantly lower temperatures significantly .