A flash of ultraviolet light sets off a chain reaction which hardens the whole object. more
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Shaping Drops: Control over Stiction and Wetting
Some surfaces are wetted by water, others are water-repellent. TU Wien (Vienna), KU Leuven and the University of Zürich have discovered a robust surface whose adhesive and wetting properties can be switched using electricity. This remarkable result is featured on the cover of Nature magazine.
To investigate the wetting of the surface, an instrument was built specially for this purpose, in which a liquid drop is brought on the surface through a very thin glass tube. The drop is made bigger and smaller while at the same time its shape is recorded. Whether the drop shape is flat or more rounded depends on the properties of the surface.
Topics:
- drop shape
- wetting
- water contact angle
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A Sandblaster at the Atomic Level
From semiconductors to moon rocks: Many materials are treated with ion beams. A research group at TU Wien has now been able to explain how this process depends on the roughness of the surface. If you want to remove a layer of paint from a metal surface, you can use a sandblaster: Countless ... more
There is a dictum to “never change a running system”. New methods can however be far superior to older ones. While to date chemical reactions are mainly accelerated by catalytic materials that comprise several hundreds of atoms, the use of single atoms could provide a new approach for catal ... more
How ions get their electrons back
Very unusual atomic states are produced at TU Wien: Ions are created by removing not just one but 20 to 40 electrons from each atom. These “highly charged ions” play an important role in current research. For a long time, people have been investigating what happens when such highly charged ... more
