Understanding how surfaces wrinkle could help explain the properties of new materials, say scientists in the US and the Netherlands.

Buckling, or wrinkling, is a universal and well-known phenomenon that occurs everywhere from nanostructured surfaces, to human skin, dried fruit, and mountain ranges.  

Jan Genzer at the University of North Carolina and Jan Groenewald at Utrecht University have described how these structures arise and why they are important. 

Genzer and Groenewald said that they hope their understanding of how surfaces wrinkle can be used to form new kinds of patterned surfaces, find new ways to measure the properties of materials, and to guide the fabrication of functional devices.

Carol A Stanier