AMO and SUN-PILOT @MNE2019

AMO showcases SUN-PILOT at the MNE 2019 conference in Rodes, Europe’s leading conference on nanofabrication.

The 45th International Conference on Micro- and Nano Engineering (MNE 2019) took place from September 23rd to 26th 2019 on the island of Rhodes (Greece). MNE is one the core international conferences on fabrication and manufacturing techniques at the micro- and nanoscale and on their applications in electronics, photonics, chemistry as well as in environmental, energy and life sciences. AMO regularly contributes to the scientific program of MNE and uses it as an opportunity to showcase its nanofabrication capabilities and recent scientific results.

This year, the key point of AMO’s contribution to the conference program has been the SUN-PILOT project, an EU-funded collaboration that aims at prototyping an industrial and cost-effective process for creating nanostructures similar to the moth-eye on a variety of materials.

The project is coordinated by the Trinity College Dublin and it is setting up a pilot line for the production of novel block copolymer (BCP) materials for applications in optics and automotive industry. AMO’s role within the SUN-PILOT consortium is the development of dry etching processes for the transfer of periodic nanopatterns formed by BCPs into a variety of substrate materials, including optical glasses and sheet metal, for which first results have been presented.

“As Europe’s major conference on nanofabrication, MNE is an ideal opportunity to showcase the SUN-PILOT project”, says Jens Bolten, group leader of Nanostructuring at AMO. “Through the conference and the exhibition we could reach people from all over the world and give an idea of the potential of the BCP materials developed in the project to create nanostructures tailored to specific applications, such as anti-reflective optical surfaces or car interior parts that combine interesting visual effects with surface functionalization, e.g. oleophobicity.”

The SUN-PILOT project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 760915.