Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed glass that won't fog up, doesn't produce any glare, cleans itself, and needs to be on all of our smartphones immediately.
The researchers created multifunctional glass with surface nanotextures that "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," according to MIT News.
The team, comprised of Kyoo-Chul Park, Hyungryul Choi, Chih-Hao Chang, Robert Cohen, Gareth McKinley, and George Barbastathis, published this week in the journal ACS Nano and released a short video featuring the technology (below).
Tiny, cone-shaped structures on the glass surface work to repel water and create an absence of glare from the material. As droplets bounce off the surface, they clean the glass by picking up foreign particulates, the scientists said.
The team created the glass with coating and etching techniques similar to those used to create silicon microprocessors in the semiconductor industry, the researchers told MIT News. The result is a textured surface pattern "consisting of an array of nanoscale cones that are five times as tall as their base width of 200 nanometers."
The new technology could be used in a variety of applications, the MIT researchers believe. Those include developing anti-fogging, anti-reflective glass for touch screen devices like smart phones, tablets, and PC displays, as well a glass sheath to cover solar panels, which can lose efficiency over time due to the accumulation of dust and dirt, and also perform sub-optimally when light hits them at a sharp angle and is reflected away.
The team is also considering developing the glass for microscopes and cameras that are used in humid environments, as well as for televisions and even building windows.
The only stumbling block is that the glass costs a lot to produce. But the researchers may have figured out a way to bring down manufacturing costs. Park and Choi told MIT News that "in the future glass or transparent polymer films might be manufactured with such surface features simply by passing them through a pair of textured rollers while still partially molten," adding a minimal extra cost to the overall cost of making regular glass.
In the meantime, the team has applied for a patent for its etching process.
