SUN worshippers will soon be able to buy sunglasses that change shade at the touch of a button.
Unlike the lenses of existing photochromic sunglasses, which darken in sunlight, the new glasses change electrically allowing wearers to alter their shade at will. The lenses contain a transparent polymeric electrode called PProDot-Me2 that turns dark blue when a voltage is applied.
鈥淥ur sunglasses require power only during switching colours,鈥� says Chao Ma of the University of Washington, Seattle, who developed the glasses with colleague Chunye Xu. 鈥淭he energy consumption is very low.鈥�
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Commercial versions should be available within two years, say the researchers, who reported their invention this week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago.
