Your Glasses Will No More Fog Thanks to This Novel Method

No one who wears glasses likes to have their glasses steamed up, and even if you use anti-fog, it needs to be reapplied constantly.

Through a newly developed chemical process, your polycarbonate lenses do not evaporate and are self-cleaning. In the new process developed at Singapore Nanyang Technological University, the lens (or a plastic surface) is treated with oxygen plasma.

This is used both for cleaning and to improve the adhesion of the thin film layer to be deposited. This transparent film consists of two layers; one layer of silicon dioxide, the other layer of titanium dioxide. These materials are placed in plastic by the pulsed laser deposition method. Using the laser, both layers are evaporated in the vacuum chamber.

As the silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide move upward, they are finely deposited on the plastic substrate, that is, at the top of the chamber. Like other anti-fog coatings, the coating causes tiny water droplets to spread as an equivalent film that is easily visible on the surface. When it touches this film, it destroys steam in just 93 milliseconds.

Tests have shown that the coated film is resistant to abrasion and adhesive tape testing. In addition, through titanium dioxide, organic pollutants such as dirt and bacteria were seen to be broken down when the light came to the plastic. In other words, through these new lenses, it will not be necessary to use antifog constantly.

Researchers say this new coating is anti-reflective, anti-fog, and self-cleaning. They also state that its production is easy and fast. With this new innovation, wearing glasses with a mask can become even easier.