How do the new airplane windows that turn dark using a button work?

Question

I was on a flight recently that had the dimmer style windows instead of the old style where you would just pull down a shade. I wondered how the glass could be made to go darker or lighter at the push of a button?

In: 24

Answer 1

I briefly read about this to learn more. From my brief understanding, the users talking about polarising filters are not quite right. U/connor is right.

PDLCs seem to be the predominate type in planes.

While in displays, LCs are used to control polarity of light, in PDLCs they are used to control the degree of light scattering (lower voltage = more scattering = more opaque)