German botanist.
Wilhelm Barthlott (born 22 June 1946 in Forst, Germany) is a German botanist and biomimetic materials scientist. His official botanical author citation is Barthlott. Barthlott's areas of specialization are biodiversity (global distribution, assessment, and change in biodiversity) and bionics/biomimetics (in particular, superhydrophobic biological surfaces and their technical applications). He is one of the pioneers in the field of biological and technical interfaces. Based on his systematic research on plant surfaces, he discovered the self-cleaning (lotus effect) biological surfaces and devel