Sometimes we spill a cup of coffee, glass of water on a keyboard or laptop. Even sometimes mobiles and such devices fall in the toilet. Some need to be opened and dried and for some others there is no other way than replacing it. This proves how vulnerable our devices are to water. So can these devices be really waterproof?
But we cannot avoid liquids at all times while we are working with such devices. So it would be nice if devices were really waterproof and water could not get into it to damage it. If you also have the same problem, this might please you, Korean scientists have found a way out of this water problem and got the technology to make devices really water-proof.
Kijung Yong, a chemical engineer at the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea had led this research and he comments, "This is a new approach combining nanowire superhydropohibicity with next generation memory devices."
Yong and his colleagues research on nano materials and their application for electronics, including tiny next generation memory devices used in nanoelectronics. His group has spent several years using nanowires to fibricate "superhydrophobic" surfaces, such that they cause water to bead up and bounce off the surface. Almost equivalent to the way as water spills off from lotus flower.
Yong and his colleagues constructed a resistive switching memory device covered with nanorods made from zinc oxide. Each tiny rod was placed on the device's surface like a bristle. Together, the aligned nanorods acted like a heavy layer of a plant. The naonorods were separated by pockets of air, and kept water droplets off the device like a crowd bouncing beach balls overhead.
"Our experiments showed that this concept works very well." says Yong adding that other waterproof coatings exist but require relatively complex processes to make. This straight-forward method, however will allow engineers to easily create waterproof surfaces with well placed nanorods.
Yong aims to improve the nanowire coating effect even if device is completely submerged under water.
Yushan Yan an engineering professor in chemical engineering department at the University of Delaware specialized in thin-film coating research said, "What they did that was really interesting is applying the coating to a working device. The device is not fancy, but nonetheless it is a device. For the field, this goes one step forward toward a real application."
Once Yan's mobile had fallen in the toilet and he had to open it up and dry it. He said, "The phone survived, to the credit of the design engineers. Perhaps with this new technology you could take it out and not need to shake it because the water never even got in there."
[via Discovery News]
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