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Corrosion of metallic substrates is a problem for a variety of applications. Corrosion can be mitigated with the use of an electrically insulating coating protecting the substrate. Thick millimetric coatings, such as paints, are generally more corrosion-resistant when compared to nanoscale coatings. However, for thermal systems, thick coatings are undesirable due to the resulting decrease in the overall heat transfer stemming from the added coating thermal resistance. Hence, the development of ultrathin (<10 μm) coatings is of great interest. Ultrathin inorganic silicon dioxide (SiO₂) coatings applied by sol–gel chemistries or chemical vapor deposition, as well as organic coatings such as Parylene C, have great anticorrosion performance due to their high dielectric breakdown and low moisture permeability. However, their application to arbitrarily shaped metals is difficult or expensive. Here, we develop a sol–gel solution …