The antireflective potential of dropwise condensation.

The transmissivity of fogged glass to visible light incident on the dry side is studied with ray tracing to show that condensation can act as an optically thick antireflective coating. A new simulation method is described that uses symmetry relations and analytical expressions for the intersection of rays and surfaces to include all drop-drop and drop-surface interactions between an infinite number of drops. Angle of incidence, droplet contact angle, and surface coverage are varied. The simulation reveals that in the optimal contact angle range, dropwise condensation can decrease the reflectance of glass to below even that of glass coated with a water film.