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.
“Our sunglasses require power only during switching colours,” says Chao Ma of the University of Washington, Seattle, who developed the glasses with colleague Chunye Xu. “The energy consumption is very low.”
Commercial versions should be available within two years, say…
