Innovation for spectacle wearers. American researchers have created glasses that color quickly to fight against glare.
No need for sunglasses anymore! A team of researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology, an American university, has developed new corrective lenses that tint at the request of the spectacle wearer.
Avoid glare
Similar glasses already existed. They were colored according to the reverberation of the sun, without the need for intervention by the person wearing the glasses. On the other hand, their effectiveness was more limited, because the glasses tinted slowly.
However, such glasses are precisely designed to avoid the glare which very often occurs suddenly, and in potentially dangerous situations, for example in the car or on a ski slope. The researchers therefore wanted to evolve the concept, by creating glasses capable of tinting directly and quickly, according to the needs of the wearer.
It is therefore an innovation which should reduce the risk of accidents caused by glare.
Large scale production
The glasses are composed of a lens capable of changing color in a few seconds. The user presses a small switch, which directly activates the coloring. The coloring time is therefore considerably reduced compared to other models.
Nothing very complex behind this phenomenon. The lens is actually made of four electrochromic polymers * that are yellow, cyan, orange and blue in color. When the eyeglass wearer presses the switch, a tiny electric shock activates the process, and the polymers combine to give the lenses a darker color.
The technical process is simple, and according to Anna Österholm, the researcher at the head of the team, easily replicable. This research could therefore pave the way for large-scale production of these corrective lenses.
* Polymers are groups of molecules that make up a class of materials
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