Scientists at ETH Zurich have developed a special coating that prevents the lenses in glasses from fogging up.
Apparently, not all heroes wear capes.
Youd think someone would have fixed this by now, but its harder than you might guess.
The difficulty of the problem is evident by the lack of current solutions.
you might wipe your glasses off when they fog up or… well, thats pretty much it.
There are anti-fog sprays and special lens coatings that help, but those only minimize the problem.
You dont have to be aphysicistto understand that the best solution would be heat.
Glasses fog when warm vapor comes into contact with their cooler lenses.
This temperature fluctuation causes the vapor to turn into moisture, and your glasses turn foggy because theyre wet.
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The ETH Zurich team got around these engineering problems bytaking a different approach.
They developed a special gold coating that uses solar energy to produce heat.
It doesnt require a battery or wires or any other components aside from the coating itself.
The way it works involves placing tiny clusters of gold in between ultrathin layers of titanium oxide.
In fact, the scientists are bent on testing the coating on other surfaces such as windows and mirrors.
Thats certainly enough to keep vapor from fogging up your lenses under common circumstances.
But its not quite enough to produce electricity in any usable amount.
