2013

We provide an overview of our recent advances in the manipulation of wetting in inverse-opal photonic crystals. Exploiting photonic crystals with spatially patterned surface chemistry to confine the infiltration of fluids to liquidspecific spatial...

Various life forms in nature display a high level of adaptability to their environments through the use of sophisticated material interfaces. This is exemplifi ed by numerous biological systems, such as the self-cleaning of lotus leaves, the water-walking...

The emergence of complex nano- and microstructures is of fundamental interest, and the ability to program their form has practical ramifications in fields such as optics, catalysis, and electronics. We developed carbonate-silica microstructures in a...

Omniphobic surfaces that can repel fluids at temperatures higher than 100 °C are rare. Most state-of-the-art liquid-repellent materials are based on the lotus effect, where a thin air layer is maintained throughout micro/nanotextures leading to high...

Certain natural organisms use micro‐patterned surface chemistry, or ice‐nucleating species, to control water condensation and ice nucleation for survival under extreme conditions. As an analogy to these biological approaches, it is shown that...

Colourimetric sensors and indicators are widely used because of their low cost and simplicity. A significant challenge associated with the design of this type of device is that the sensing mechanism must be simultaneously optimised for the sensitivity of...

Windows are a major source of energy inefficiency in buildings. In addition, heating by thermal radiation reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic panels. To help reduce heating by solar absorption in both of these cases, we developed a thin, transparent...

A transparent coating that repels a wide variety of liquids, prevents staining, is capable of self-repair and is robust towards mechanical damage can have a broad technological impact, from solar cell coatings to self-cleaning optical devices. Here we...