NIR-Triggered High-Efficiency Self-Healable Protective Optical Coating for Vision Systems

Recently, self-healing materials have evolved to recover specific functions such as electronic, magnetic, acoustic, structural or hierarchical, and biological properties. In particular, the development of self-healing protection coatings that can be applied to lens components in vision systems such as augmented reality glasses, actuators, and image and time-of-flight sensors has received intensive attention from the industry. In the present study, we designed polythiourethane dynamic networks containing a photothermal N-butyl substituted diimmonium borate dye to demonstrate their potential applications in self-healing protection coatings for the optical components of vision systems. The optimized self-healing coating exhibited a high transmittance (-,95% in the visible-light region), tunable refractive index (up to 1.6), a moderate Abbe number (-,35), and high surface hardness (>200 MPa). When subjected to near-infrared (NIR) radiation (1064 nm), the surface temperature of the coating increased to 75 degrees C via the photothermal effect and self-healing of the scratched coatings occurred via a dynamic thiourethane exchange reaction. The coating was applied to a lens protector, and its self-healing performance was demonstrated. The light signal distorted by the scratched surface of the coating was perfectly restored after NIR-induced self-healing. The photoinduced self-healing process can also autonomously occur under sunlight with low energy consumption.

Automated summary

Recently, self-healing materials have gained attention for their ability to recover specific functions in various systems. In this study, polythiourethane dynamic networks containing a photothermal dye were designed for self-healing protection coatings in vision systems. The optimized coating exhibited high transmittance, tunable refractive index, and self-healing capability through a dynamic reaction. The coating's self-healing performance was demonstrated on a lens protector, showing perfect restoration of distorted light signals.