This process knocks away sodium ions until the microscopic layers of the clay collapse atop the strontium-90 ions.

Repeated washings remove a microscopic layer over each fiber, making linen even softer.

Johnson Controls and Sewell Plastics are also trying to block the passage of oxygen by coating containers with a microscopic outer layer of glass.

In clinical trials, surgeons are using such lasers to remove microscopic layers of cells and help the eye better focus light waves.

A base coat of polish might take five hours to apply and consist of up to 2,000 microscopic layers.

A phyllopack, with its hundreds of square meters of primed reaction surface stacked in microscopic layers in a convenient insert, was gone.

On Jan. 18, Mr. D'Addario will introduce his new line of extended play strings coated with a microscopic layer of polyurethane.

They have visible and microscopic alternating layers (laminations) of platelets mixed with fibrin, which appear lighter, and darker layers of red blood cells.

These circuits are built up by creating microscopic layers of metal and other components on small wafers of silicon, or 'chips', using a special photographic technique known a photolithography.

In air, aluminum is durable because its surface becomes covered in a microscopic layer of oxidation, Mr. Lucas of the Navy said.