Permanent Anti-Fog Coatings Produced Via Aerosol Impact Driven Assembly

The Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unitrsquo;s (xEMU) helmet is a complex assembly designed to accomplish several tasks to protect and enable astronauts. In addition to maintaining a suitable environment for the wearer, it must also allow for appropriate mobility and provide a wide and undistorted view of the surroundings. A critical component of the helmetrsquo;s optical system is the anti-fog coating. While previous versions of the anti-fog coating have provided suitable anti-fog performance, they have been difficult to apply, lacked mechanical or chemical durability, or resulted in unanticipated failures (e.g., outgassing of eye-irritating materials during use). This work describes the use of a new coating technology, aerosol impact-driven assembly (AIDA), to develop a next-generation permanent anti-fog coating for the xEMU helmet. We use AIDArsquo;s unique ability to tune both the refractive index and surface roughness of films to deposit a thin, transparent (gt;85% transmittance of visible light), and hydrophilicnbsp;anti-fog coating.nbsp;