Anti-Fog Coatings for Spacesuit Helmets

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of applying a permanent anti-fog coating on the interior of polycarbonate spacesuit helmets. The coating uses a mechanically resilient and permanent Superhydrophobic (SH) coating consisting of an optically transparent Diamond Like Carbon (DLC) and a proven 2-step plasma processing technique to achieve an anti-fog, self-cleaning, SH-DLC layer with Water Contact Angle (WCA) gt;150deg; and small roll-off angle. nbsp;The all-dry process consists of an oxygen plasma etching to engineer the surface of the polycarbonate to create a well-controlled nanotextured surface, which is key to superhydrophobicity, follow by physical vapor deposition of a thin DLC coating with low surface energy at a deposition temperature compatible with polycarbonate materials. The SH coating will be applied using Acreersquo;s large volume batch coating systems and etchers.