As anyone who has spilled coffee onto their computer knows, electronics are highly susceptible to water damage. Kijung Yong and his team at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea demonstrate a possible solution: a resistive switching memory chip that uses a layer of zinc oxide nanorods as the switching material. The application of stearic acid to the nanorods makes the material hydrophobic.

Water droplets placed on the device remained almost spherical and the device continued to function for many on–off cycles. Water on an unmodified version tended to spread, and the device broke.

Adv. Mater. 10.1002/adma.201101580 (2011)