The functional coatings

Lens coatings serve to protect both the lenses and the person wearing them. By blocking certain types of light as they pass through the lens, we can enhance lenses in terms of look, vision, and overall quality.

Lens coatings serve to protect both the lenses and the person wearing them.

The func­tion­al coat­ings

Lens coat­ings serve to pro­tect both the lens­es and the per­son wear­ing them.

MIR­RORED LENS­ES - For ex­am­ple, lens­es with a mir­ror coat­ing serve two func­tions. Not only is a mir­ror ef­fect a vir­tu­al re­quire­ment in the world of eye­wear in re­sponse to fash­ion trends, it also plays a cru­cial role in terms of pro­tec­tion. In fact, a mir­rored coat­ing re­flects light off of the lens, so it acts as a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er pro­tect­ing your eyes. By sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duc­ing the amount of light that reach­es your eyes, mir­rored lens­es help to re­duce eye strain.

As a re­sult, mir­rored lens­es are great for any­one who en­joys out­door ac­tiv­i­ties in bright sun­light, such as on the wa­ter, at the beach, or high up in the moun­tains.

Mir­ror­ing is achieved by ap­ply­ing mul­ti­ple lay­ers of coat­ing and can be done on both neu­tral and grad­u­at­ed fil­ters.

At Di­v­el Italia, we di­vide our mir­ror­ing into three types:

  • CLAS­SIC MIR­ROR­ING: gold, sil­ver and blue
  • MUL­TI­LAY­ER MIR­ROR­ING: in fash­ion col­ors
  • FLASH MIR­ROR­ING: for a soft­er, more del­i­cate ef­fect

PO­LAR­IZED LENS­ES - When the sun is high in the sky and its light hits a re­flec­tive sur­face, it caus­es glare and can blur your vi­sion. Sun­glass­es with po­lar­ized lens­es block this re­flect­ed light so that you can see with greater clar­i­ty and de­f­i­n­i­tion.

Po­lar­ized lens­es have a so­lar fil­ter that in­cludes a dark, pro­tec­tive film that per­ma­nent­ly col­ors the lens. This spe­cial coat­ing is ap­plied to the sur­face of the lens in or­der to re­duce glare. On its own, this fil­ter doesn’t block any UV rays, so, when­ev­er buy­ing a pair of glass­es with po­lar­ized lens­es, you should al­ways check the lev­el of UV fil­ter the lens­es pro­vide.

The sole pur­pose of this po­lar­iza­tion is to give lens­es this anti-re­flec­tion func­tion. By en­sur­ing greater con­trast, you see more clear­ly with re­duced glare, so you can have more con­fi­dence in what you see around you. Po­lar­ized lens­es are great for every sport — es­pe­cial­ly sail­ing, cy­cling, and run­ning — and oth­er out­door ac­tiv­i­ties that in­volve con­stant ex­po­sure to sun­light.

They are also ide­al for dri­ving be­cause of their abil­i­ty to re­duce glare.

To see if a lens is po­lar­ized, hold it at a 90-de­gree an­gle and place it near a com­put­er screen. If the re­flec­tion from the screen is dark­ened, the lens­es are po­lar­ized.

Po­lar­ized lens­es can also be mir­rored.

PHO­TOCHROMIC - Pho­tochromic lens­es, too, are de­signed to re­duce glare, but they do more than that. They are also able to adapt to changes in am­bi­ent light. Un­der in­tense sun­light, these lens­es dark­en, and when there is less light, they light­en and be­come trans­par­ent. Pho­tochromic lens­es are great for peo­ple who are par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive to light, but also for any­one look­ing for con­ve­nience. Be­cause these lens­es ad­just au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, you don’t need to take off your glass­es when com­ing in­doors.

Pho­tochromic lens­es take ad­van­tage of a re­versible chem­i­cal re­ac­tion.

A pho­tochromic lens coat­ing in­cludes pho­tochromic pig­ments that re­act to light. Pho­tochromic lens­es are per­fect for a cloudy day, when you fre­quent­ly go back and forth be­tween in­doors and out, and in any sit­u­a­tion in which light­ing con­di­tions change fre­quent­ly. Be­cause of this con­ve­nience, pho­tochromic lens­es are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing used for pre­scrip­tion eye­wear. Cor­rec­tive lens­es with a pho­tochromic coat­ing are also nec­es­sary for any­one who suf­fers from a high de­gree of light sen­si­tiv­i­ty (pho­to­pho­bia).

DI­V­EL ITALIA pho­tochromic lens­es are avail­able in trans­par­ent (Fo­tochro­ma) and col­ored (Fo­to­col­or) ver­sions, both of which dark­en based on the am­bi­ent light­ing con­di­tions.