You may have heard the term “thin film coating”, or more commonly an AR or “anti-reflective coating” when shopping for new glasses, but what does that mean? A thin film coating, as the name implies, is essentially an invisible stack of incredibly thin layers applied to your lenses. These layers are designed to control how light interacts with your lenses before it reaches your eyes.  

How thin is thin? A single layer of a thin film coating is usually a few hundred nanometers thick. That sounds like a lot, until you realize a human hair is at least 80,000 nanometers! 

That thin coating can have a big impact on how you see. Think of your lens coating like a light filter: it helps manage different types of light, allowing certain wavelengths to pass through while reflecting or absorbing others. Depending on the specific coating, this can include less glare, improved clarity, or reduced blue light emitted by digital screens. The subtle colored reflection you sometimes notice on a lens is a result of the coating interacting with light. 

There’s a wide variety of coatings and benefits you can add to your glasses, especially if you spend a lot of time in front of screens, drive at night, or want your glasses to look as clear as possible in photos and everyday conversations by reducing distracting reflections. When choosing your next pair of glasses, ask your eye-care professional which coating options are available and which benefits may be most useful for your everyday visual needs.