Water and dust repellent surfaces

The process often used to make superhydrophobic surfaces is called Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP). While this process needs larger pulse energies than direct surface patterning, it can create wavelength-size microstructures on the surface. This results in very interesting physical properties. Water get's repelled but for instance dust too if the dust particles are large enough.

There will be much less cleaning of solar power stations (or windows) needed once this technology takes off. Fusion Bionic is a Germany based leader in the DLIP technology: https://fusionbionic.com/en/