No need to wipe out fog on your car's windscreen!

A new water-repellent nanoscale coating could resist both fogging and frosting on glasses, paving way for clearer surfaces, MIT scientists say.

The coating could prevent frost and fog from forming on windshields, camera lenses and other surfaces.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists say the invention is an advance towards glass that remains clear

under the harshest of conditions.

The study on nanoscale coating, which could have uses ranging from automobile windshields to camera lenses, according to the study published in the journal ACS Nano.

Researchers Michael F Rubner, Robert E Cohen and colleagues point out that anti-fogging coatings that absorb water have been the focus of attention lately because of their

ability to reduce light scattering and the resultant distortion caused by condensation.

However, under extreme fogging conditions, these surfaces

may frost and become foggy. They set out to make a better

coating to withstand the aggressive conditions.

Their report describes development and testing of a new coating that rapidly absorbs water molecules that cannot

freeze in the coating.

At the same time, the coating has a water-repelling or

hydrophobic effect to larger water droplets, according to the

study.

The hydrophobic character means that water droplets do not

spread extensively on the coating but essentially remain as

flattened droplets.

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