Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new drape made from graphene—the thinnest material known to science—which can enhance the water-resistant properties of materials with rough surfaces. These “nanodrapes” are less than a nanometer thick, chemically inert, and provide a layer of protection without changing the properties of the underlying material. The team of researchers, led by Rensselaer Professor Nikhil Koratkar, demonstrated how droplets of water encounter significantly less friction when moving across a surface covered with a nanodrape. This innovation holds the potential to benefit lab-on-chip devices, high-throughput assays, self-cleaning surfaces, and many other applications requiring the motion of liquid drops on solid surfaces. “Graphene nanodrapes are the thinnest, most sheer drapes we can imagine. Other than providing a barrier against water, these drapes are optically transparent and cause minimal changes to the topology of the underlying surface,” said Koratkar, the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer. “We found this ultrasheer drape prevents the penetration of water into textured surfaces, which has interesting and potentially important technological implications for many applications in micro- and nanofluidics.” Drops of water can get easily stuck or “pinned” to a material with a nanotextured rough surface. When the droplet falls
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