Ronald R. Willey, Willey Optical, Consultants, Melbourne, FL
The advent of the extensive use of Zoom and similar meeting venues has made the reflection from eyeglasses more apparent and distracting. Eyeglass lenses which have not been antireflection (AR) coated typically reflect more than 4% of light from each lens surface or more than 8% per lens. Lenses with the common 4-layer AR coating still reflect more than 0.5% of greenish or bluish light per surface. When we observe the reflection of a bright computer screen or other illumination sources in someone’s glasses while they are communicating with a video image, it is particularly distracting if they have uncoated lenses, but it still can be distracting even with the common 4-layer AR coatings. The currently available technology will allow the reduction of these reflections by an order of magnitude so that we can “look someone in the eye” when we talk with them via video conferencing. The new coatings would probably use 6-10 layers, which is not many layers as compared to more sophisticated applications where over 100 layers are now used. The common production issues limiting performance now are inadequate reproducibility of factors like pressure, rate, uniformity, temperature, etc. Tighter process control would tend to make these coatings somewhat more expensive than the present 4-layer coatings, but discerning users would probably be willing to pay a premium for their improved appearance when being viewed by video.