This woman invented the solution to lens flare – you’ve probably never heard of her, but every photographer should thank her

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This International Women’s Day, I say thanks to Katharine Burr Blodgett – the inventor of non-reflective glass, crucial for stopping lens flare

2H33XET KATHARINE BURR BLODGETT (1898-1979) American chemist and physicist at the General Electric Research Laboratories in 1938
(Image credit: Alamy)

Few women have had as big an impact on photography as Katharine Burr Blodgett – and I’m going to hazard a guess that you’ve never even heard of her. In all fairness, until recently, I hadn’t either, but every photographer on Earth owes Blodgett a debt of gratitude.

Blodget (1898-1979) was an American physicist and chemist, and her co-invention of non-reflective glass changed photography forever. It’s hard to understate just how much of an impact her invention had, as its principles are still used in camera lenses today.

In 1938, as an employee at General Electric, Blodgett and fellow researcher Irving Langmuir (1881-1957) refined a way of coating glass with a chemical layer that enabled 99% of light to pass through it. This significantly reduced unwanted glare and reflections, and the principle has been applied to camera lenses ever since.

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The chemical layer that the duo invented came to be known as Langmuir-Blodgett film – and it consisted of 44 single-molecule-thick layers of fatty acids derived from soap. While Langmuir invented the layer itself, Blodgett figured out how to control its thickness and apply it to glass.

In a 1930 portrait, GE chemist Dr. Irving Langmuir holds a pliotron, a type of vacuum tube he helped to invent in 1912-1913. The tube was used in 1914 as a current amplification device for radio and telephone communications; it was succeeded by smaller, more efficient tubes that still operated on the principles developed in Langmuir's research. (Photo by Schenectady Museum; Hall of Electrical History Foundation/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Dr Irving Langmuir holds a pliotron, a type of vacuum tube he helped to invent in 1912-1913 (Image credit: Getty Images)

Just one year after its invention, Langmuir-Blodgett film was used in cinema for the first time on the production of the all-time classic Gone With the Wind.

But it’s the wider use of Blodgett’s invention beyond photography and cinematography that truly highlights how groundbreaking it was. Just a few years later, during World War II, Langmuir-Blodgett film was used to coat submarine periscopes in the fight against the Nazis.

To this day, the anti-glare coatings on our camera lenses still rely on the findings of Langmuir and Blodgett. While modern non-reflective glass is typically coated in more durable materials, such as magnesium fluoride and silicone compounds, the original layer-by-layer, thin-film technique still underpins non-reflective glass.

So, on behalf of everyone who’s picked up a camera since 1938, I say thank you to Katherine Blodgett (and Irving Langmuir).

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Alan Palazon
Alan Palazon
Staff Writer

I’m a writer, journalist and photographer who joined Digital Camera World in 2026. I started out in editorial in 2021 and my words have spanned sustainability, careers advice, travel and tourism, and photography – the latter two being my passions.

I first picked up a camera in my early twenties having had an interest in photography from a young age. Since then, I’ve worked on a freelance basis, mostly internationally in the travel and tourism sector. You’ll usually find me out on a hike shooting landscapes and adventure shots in my free time.

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