Method for fabricating a hydrophobic coating for corrosion protection

A method of fabricating a hydrophobic coating on a surface of a solid substrate which includes a layer-integrable material, the method comprising:

• depositing a deformable layer of the layer-integrable material onto the surface of the solid substrate;
• forcibly bombarding by pneumatically or electrostatically spraying a plurality of particles within the deformable layer, wherein at least a portion of the particles is at a depth below the surface of the deformable layer and others are at different depths so as to define a distribution of depths of particles to thereby provide a complex morphology in the deformable layer;
• solidifying the deformable layer including the plurality of particles so as to be integral with the surface of the solid substrate;
• and
• adjusting a viscosity of the deformable layer in tandem with particle bombardment parameters used in the bombarding step to be between about 1000 and about 500,000 cP to enable at least a portion of the particles to penetrate into the deformable layer with the distribution of depths while any particles of a nanometer-size among the portion of the particles only penetrate into the deformable material without penetrating through the substrate,
• whereby at least a portion of the plurality of particles is embedded at a threshold depth within the deformable layer in a range of one quarter of an average diameter of the plurality of particles to approximately 100 times the average diameter of the plurality of particles prior to solidification.