Scientists at the ETH Zurich Research Institute in Switzerland have announced the discovery of a new type of coating that can heat glasses and prevent them from fogging up, solving a problem that greatly disturbs people who need the object to see. .
The findings were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology last week after three years of research. Unfortunately, there are no plans for commercial production of the solution yet.
Fogged-up eyeglasses have been a problem since the advent of optical lenses, but it peaked during the pandemic when all eyeglass wearers found out the hard way that most goggles release breath towards the eyes. It was with this in mind that researchers developed a way to try and reverse the problem.
Gold is the secret of the solution
Knowing that heat is the best way to keep a glass surface fog-free, the new coating material uses light-absorbing gold nanoparticles rather than electricity to do just that.
The device uses a layer of clustered gold nanoparticles sandwiched between two ultra-thin layers of titanium oxide. The entire coating is only 10 nanometers thick.
The coating is able to absorb infrared radiation from the sun and thus heat the lens glass up to 8 degrees Celsius.
Researchers say the refractive properties of titanium oxide increase the efficiency of the heating effect, while the outer layer helps protect the gold from wear.
When there is no direct sunlight, the gold layer can help conduct electricity, like a battery, and continue to heat the plating in the same way.
Being gold nanoparticles, the coating does not tend to be very expensive, the researchers told the British newspaper The Guardian.
Scientists, however, have already announced that they are looking for lower-value materials to popularize the coating as quickly as possible.
According to the team of scientists, the method that prevents the windows from fogging could also help car windscreens in the future.
