46

nanotimes News in Brief

12-04 :: April/May 2012

Glass // Anti-Fogging, Self-Cleaning and Free of Glare Glass

R

esearchers at MIT (US) developed a way to make glass that’s anti-fogging, self-cleaning and free

of glare. It 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 fea- tures, 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.

Kyoo-Chul Park, Hyungryul J. Choi, Chih-Hao Chang, Robert E. Cohen, Gareth H. McKinley, and George Bar- bastathis: Nanotextured Silica Surfaces with Robust Super-Hydrophobicity and Omnidirectional Broad- band Super-Transmissivity, In: ACS Nano, April 8, 2012, DOI:10.1021/nn301112t: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn301112t

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8he2oKAR8IE

Through a process involving thin layers of material depo- sited on a surface and then selectively etched away, the MIT team produced a surface covered with tiny cones, each five times taller than their width. This pattern prevents reflections, while at the same time repelling water from the surface. © Hyungryul Choi and Kyoo-Chul Park