Scientists at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) may have a permanent solution to the problem of fogging windows and lenses that typically occurs when a cold surface comes into contact with warm, moist air, causing countless tiny water droplets to condense on glass or other surfaces. These droplets so formed scatter light causing the surface to become foggy. A research team at the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at MIT has developed a coating, a thin sandwich of alternating layers of silica nanoparticles and a polymer called polyallylamine hydrochloride, which prevents this process from occurring. The layers are applied from a water-based solution with the coating process based upon electrostatic forces holding negatively charged layers of silica together with the positively charged polyallylamine hydrochloride. The charged silica nanoparticles make the coating super-hydrophilic to strongly attract the water droplets causing them to form much smaller contact angles with the surface.