Thanks to a new technology using gold, you will soon be able to avoid fogging up your glasses.
Prevent your glasses from fogging up with this trick!
Researchers in Switzerland have developed a special coating to prevent moisture from condensing on lenses. The scientists say in a new paper that their approach could also be used on car windshields. It’s one of a growing number of technologies that aim to solve the common but persistent problem of foggy glass.
"Most approaches are based on changing the wettability of the surface," Iwan Haechler, a researcher on the Swiss team, told Lifewire in an email interview. "For example, there are anti-fog sprays, which create a very thin layer of water on the surface. This is called a superhydrophilic surface. The problem is contamination. Because water loves water, it loves everything, including dirt. And just a little bit of impurity on the surface makes it useless. That's why you have to reapply those sprays all the time; they're not sustainable."
The team from the Swiss institute ETH Zurich developed a coating that was made in a special clean room, in which small amounts of gold are deposited on the surface. The layer selectively absorbs solar radiation. Half of the energy in sunlight is in the infrared spectrum and the other half in the visible light and the UV radiation spectrum.
