Giz Bill Nye Explains: The iPhone 3GS’s Oleophobic Screen

Exclusive : Bill Nye the Science Guywas gracious enough to elbow Matt out of the fashion and write a Giz Explains column , in which he tackles the skill of “ oleophobia , ” and its intercourse to the newfangled iPhone screen .

The new 3GS iPhone has a coating that helps you leave no , well hardly any , prints–-fingerprints . The crank filmdom is surface with a polymer , a plastic that human skin oil does n’t adhere to very well . citizenry in the chemic soldering business like to call the ruined open “ oleophobic . ”

Such a lovely Greek cognate word may sound like it means “ afraid of oil . ” And , it does , but it also connotes ( or carries with ) “ averting ” or “ not - like - to - be - around - tivity , ” if I may . Instead of sticking to the stick to - plastic surface of your new phone , the rock oil from you finger’s breadth or cheekbone or top of your nose stays more or less together as its own smooshed droplet .

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The Applers were able to do this by bonding this oleophobic polymer to glass . The polymer is an organic ( from organism ) compound , carbon - free-base . The shabu is nominally inorganic , silicon - establish … solid rock’n’roll . The trick is getting the one to stick to the other . Although it is nominally proprietary , this is probably done with a third molecule that sticks to Si on one side and to carbon - ground polymer on the other side . Chemical engineers get it to stay stuck by induce compound to disperse or “ inter - click ” into the polymer . The intermediate chemical is a “ silane , ” a molecule that has silicon and alkanes ( chains of carbon paper atoms ) .

If you ’d like — and I hope you will — take a moment and think about droplet , like urine droplets , on a surface . late in the droplet , water molecules stick to each other . On the surface though , they stick to each other as well , but they also have to opportunity to stick or not to stick to the surface they ’re resting on . When they stick , say to the nylon fiber in a bikini strap , the swimsuit feels wet ( or so I ’m told ) . When they do n’t deposit to the surface they ’re resting on , they bead up , like in the cable car wax commercial .

Well , the polymer that the 3GS iPhone filmdom is coat with does n’t let the rock oil of your hide spliff to it very much . So , you do n’t leave fingerprints . The key is in the intermediate compound , the silanes that hold the charge plate to the glass .

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