A Trombe wall is a sun-facing wall separated from the outdoors by glass and an air space, which absorbs solar energy and releases it selectively towards the interior at night. The essential idea was first explored by Edward S. Morse

Edward S. Morse

Edward Sylvester Morse was an American zoologist and orientalist.-Early life:Morse was born in Portland, Maine as the son of a Congregationalist preacher. His mother, who did not share her husband's religious beliefs, encouraged her son's interest in the sciences...

 and patented by him in 1881. In the 1960s it was fully developed as an architectural element by French engineer Félix Trombe

Félix Trombe

Felix Trombe was a French engineer.He is best known for his pioneering work in passive solar building design with the Trombe wall, which bears his name.- Mont-Louis Solar Furnace :...

 and architect Jacques Michel.

Even single-pane glass works for this process, because glass is transparent to the incoming visible light and near-visible shorter-wavelength higher-energy infra-red radiation that warms the wall mass, but less so to the longer-wavelength infra-red radiation that is the heat that is radiated back out from the wall mass.