Water-repellent surfaces of metallic glasses: fabrication and application

Water-repellent surfaces based on advanced materials have broad applications in various fields. The amorphous structure and flexible element compositions make metallic glasses (MGs) suitable for multifunctional surfaces' design. Recent progresses in the fabrication and application of MG waterrepellent surfaces are comprehensively reviewed. A variety of fabrication approaches are presented including thin film MG coating and bulk MG surface patterning as well as other potential methods based on manipulation of one-dimensional MGs. Considering the surface wetting kinetics and the metastable atomic structure, the evaluations on stability and durability of MG surfaces in real environment are discussed. Several critical evaluations of MG functional surfaces have been proposed for the design and fabrication, focusing on the size effect and external stimuli influence on the surface wettability and amorphous structure evolutions. On the basis of the systematic evaluations, the cutting-edge and potential applications of MG water-repellent surfaces are then discussed. Current challenges faced in practical applications and the prospects on the future developments are addressed to facilitate further research/investigations on MG functional surfaces. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).