Hairy situation solved with new fabrication technique

When it comes to animals (and even some plants) hair can be found anywhere and everywhere. And thankfully so, because hair helps perform a variety of vital functions– from UV protection, insulation, temperature regulation and even transport of liquids or for swimming.

Not only are these hairs often widespread – but they are many.  Hair is often layered, forming a dense “lawn”– with the distance between hairs being significantly smaller than the length of any individual hair. This means hair carries a rather high aspect ratio.

This high aspect ratio, while biologically beneficial, makes it challenging to produce artificial hairy materials with polymer materials.

Müller et al. address this challenge and present a new technique for fabricating surfaces covered with a dense lawn of high AR nanoscale polymer hairs.

Pore-assisted modifications of polymer film surfaces using ion-track etched PC membranes as porous templates. Depending on the pore size either (a) microreplicated cylinders or (b) drawn hair-like nano- and microstructures can be generated.

Ultimately, Müller et al. demonstrate how their technique offers a relatively simple and time effective solution for creating unique topographies---Topographies which could dramatically tailor the wetting properties of common polymers.

The full article can be read on nature.com (open access).