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第一段
1 .Listen to part of a lecture in a materials science class.
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第二段
1 .Ok. Last time we finished going over some of the fundamental concepts of nanotechnology, the multi-disciplinary science of manipulating or controlling extremely small units of matter on the scale of molecules or even atoms.
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第三段
1 .So, I want to talk about how nanotechnology is being used today.
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2 .And just to give you an idea, we'll look at one particular application.
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第四段
1 .A team of material scientists in Massachusetts has been working on a new ultra-thin coating, a nano coating that might be applied to objects like bathroom mirrors, car windows, and eye glasses to prevent fogging.
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2 .And the coating has the potential to be a permanent solution, unlike the kinds of anti-fogging spray-on liquids that are on the market today.
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第五段
1 .Now, fogging often occurs when a cold surface comes into contact with warm moist air, such as when a glass shower door or mirror fogs up during a warm shower.
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第六段
1 .Now, what's actually happening is, what the fog is, is thousands of tiny spherical water droplets condensing on the surface of the glass.
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2 .Light hits the water droplets and is scattered in random directions, causing the fogging effect.
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第七段
1 .Now, the kind of spray-on treatments I mentioned.
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2 .Well, they wear off.
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3 .What happens is they cause the tiny water droplets to flatten when they condense on the surface of the shower door or bathroom mirror or whatever object it is, it's been applied to.
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第八段
1 .Because the droplets are flattened, when light hits them, the light doesn't scatter.
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2 .But, as I said, those kinds of treatments don't last very long.
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第九段
1 .The new coating has two important components.
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2 .One, negatively charged silicon nano particles, these are basically tiny particles of glass.
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3 .And two, a positively charged polymer, which you already know, a polymer is a chemical compound.
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4 .They're layered over each other.
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5 .The polymer, then the silicon nano particles, the polymer, then the silicon nano particles, you see.
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6 .They're layered in such a way that the silicon nano particles don't pack together tightly.
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7 .In other words, the structure has pores, or holes, little tiny pockets throughout it.
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第十段
1 .The coating prevents fog from developing, because it loves water.
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2 .It attracts the water droplets, sucking them into the tiny pores.
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3 .And that alters the shape of the droplets.
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4 .The droplets are forced to flatten and to join together into a single sheet of water, rather than remaining as single droplets, each of which is a sphere that scatters light in different directions.
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第十一段
1 .Ok, so, instead of being scattered, the light passes through the thin sheet of water.
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2 .So, there's no fogging effect.
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第十二段
1 .The ultra-thin coating can be made more durable by heating it, and of course the object it's applied to, to an extremely hot temperature, 500 degree Celsius.
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2 .What that does, is burn the polymer away, and fuse the silicon nano particles together, while maintaining the structure of pores.
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第十三段
1 .But that's possible only on materials that can withstand high heat.
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2 .Glass? Yes. Plastics? No.
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3 .But they're working on solving that problem, trying to come up with a way to coat plastics and other materials, durably and effectively.
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第十四段
1 .Interestingly, it was a plant, the lotus plant that inspired this work.
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2 .I guess you could say inspired it in an indirect sort of way.
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3 .The leaves of this plant are what we call superhydrophobic.
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4 .Lotus leaves, being superhydrophobic, don't attract water.
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5 .They repel it, in a big way.
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6 .When raindrops fall on lotus leaves, they remain spherical. They roll right off.
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第十五段
1 .So for a long time, the Massachusetts scientists tried to create a coating that acted like these lotus leaves, a coating that was superhydrophobic.
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2 .But then they began to think about the opposite extreme.
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3 .Could they accomplish their goal by making a coating that, instead of repelling water, actually, attracted water?
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第十六段
1 .Well, they seem to have gotten quite far with this approach.
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2 .It's really strong work, with a range of interesting consumer applications.
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3 .It's not costly to manufacture the coating.
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4 .Some carmakersare interested in applying it to their wind shields.
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5 .Looks like we'll probably see it on the markets in everyday products in the next few years.
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