I found this interesting story about a company that makes insulating and light diffusing glass, Advanced Glazings Ltd.

From the company website:

Advanced Glazings Ltd. was founded in 1995 by Dr. Douglas I. Milburn to develop, manufacture and market sustainable and commercially viable technologies related to sunlight. To date, Advanced Glazings Ltd. has developed two important products; SoleraTM, for the architectural daylighting market and InsolCoreTM for the greenhouse market, both based upon transparent insulation technology. Solera was introduced at the 2000 conference of the American Institute of Architecture.

The TorStar story, Going green with glass 5 Dec 2005 describes a hockey arena project in Cape Breton. They use the special glass to allow natural light in but maintain ice quality and even lighting.:

Ojolick consulted with Douglas Milburn, founder and president of Advanced Glazings Ltd. in Sydney, N.S. Milburn is an expert in transparent insulation, having spent the early 1990s doing his Ph.D. on the topic at the University of Waterloo.

During that time Milburn engineered a transparent honeycomb-structured glaze for glass that acts as an insulator for windows and has the ability to diffuse direct sunlight. After graduation he founded Advanced Glazings, and since then his insulating glaze product, called Solera, has become an architect’s dream.

I took some courses from Milburn’s supervisor. It would have been interesting to hear about their research back then. It is still interesting now though.