Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a series of superhydrophobic (extremely water-repellent) materials and surfaces. This research and development effort began over five years ago with a goal of making a nanostructured material that would be the most water-repellent material theoretically possible — a material with a water contact angle very close to the theoretical limit of 180 degrees. The idea was to create an ideal nanostructured surface pattern that greatly amplifies the effect of water’s surface tension. Modeling and simulation results indicated that the ideal structure for water repulsion would be an ordered cone array. ORNL has created such an array structure (morphology) using fiber optic fabrication methods that turns a normally hydrophobic surface into the most hydrophobic surface fabricated to date. These surfaces turn water drops into nearly perfect spheres that bounce like rubber balls all over the surface until they finally bounce off. The water repulsion is so great that a layer of air gets physically trapped to the surface and remains on the surface even if the surface is totally submerged in water. The fabrication of this ideal cone structure was based on a modified version of existing microchannel plate fabrication techniques. This presentation will discuss how we fabricated these glass cone arrays, and the resulting superhydrophobic behavior of the arrays. The knowledge gained from this initial research effort has led to the creation of additional materials, structures and coatings that are not only superhydrophobic, but that are also much easier to fabricate than glass cone arrays and can be applied to virtually any surface. All these superhydrophobic materials and some of their potential applications will also be discussed and demonstrated. Presented March 10, 2011.