Through a
glass, clearly
MIT
researchers find a way to make glass that’s anti-fogging, self-cleaning and
free of glare.
(April 26,
2012) One of the
most instantly recognizable features of glass is the way it reflects light. But
a new way of creating surface textures on glass, developed by researchers at
MIT, virtually eliminates reflections, producing glass that is almost
unrecognizable because of its absence of glare — and whose surface causes water
droplets to bounce right off, like tiny rubber balls.
The new
“multifunctional” glass, based on surface nanotextures that produce an array of
conical features, is self-cleaning and resists fogging and glare, the
researchers say. Ultimately, they hope it can be made using an inexpensive
manufacturing process that could be applied to optical devices, the screens of
smartphones and televisions, solar panels, car windshields and even windows in
buildings.
The
technology is described in a paper published in the journal ACS Nano,
co-authored by mechanical engineering graduate students Kyoo-Chul Park and
Hyungryul Choi, former postdoc Chih-Hao Chang SM ’04, PhD ’08 (now at North
Carolina State University), chemical engineering professor Robert Cohen, and
mechanical engineering professors Gareth McKinley and George Barbastathis.