Materials that simultaneously have contrasting properties—for example, they are soft on the one hand and hard on the other, with a gradual transition between the two properties—could enable completely new applications like anti-reflective lenses. In nature, such merging properties are indeed common, for example in mussels or in the human eye. Materials scientists at Kiel University have been using this principle to develop new materials on the nanoscale. They have now succeeded in producing ultra-thin copolymer films with such gradually varying properties. As multifunctional coatings, they could allow complex optical and electronic applications in miniature format, for example for microelectronics. Their results were recently published in the journal Materials Today and also featured on the cover page of the issue.
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Source: Phys.org