Using lasers, scientists at the University of Rochester have been able to make metals water repellent, or super-hydrophobic, without having to use temporary coatings.
Super-hydrophobic materials that do not rely on chemical coatings are in high demand, as they can be used for sanitation purposes and to prevent rusting. Chunlei Guo and his colleague Anatoliy Vorobyev used a precise laser-patterning technique to give the metals their new properties. "The material is so strongly water-repellent, the water actually gets bounced off," Guo said in a statement. "Then it lands on the surface again, gets bounced off again, and then it will just roll off from the surface."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The teenage 'maths prodigy' who turned out to be a cheatUnder The Radar Jiang Ping defied expectations in a global competition but something wasn't right
-
Puppet shows, pagodas and pho: a guide to HanoiThe Week Recommends Vietnam's capital city blends the ancient with the new
-
'There are benefits, but not acknowledging them would tell only half of the story'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hopedspeed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
-
Why February 29 is a leap daySpeed Read It all started with Julius Caesar
