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Officials at the Fraunhofer USA Center for Coatings and Laser Applications
are working with Michigan State University to bridge the gap between research
and commercial applications. The center has been involved in a partnership
with MSU since 2003 and provides research and development using its expertise
in coating and laser technology.
Some examples of the work going on at the facility in East Lansing are
carbon-based nanocoatings for a variety of applications, including microsystems.
The center offers customers the integration of high performance materials
into their product designs.
Fraunhofer USA
is a non-profit organization and subsidiary of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft,
which has 13,000 employees worldwide. “It's one of the world's largest
research and development applied operations doing over $1 billion worldwide,
primarily in Germany and Europe,” said Jes
Asmussen, the center’s executive director and a distinguished
professor at MSU.
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MSU / Fraunhofer USA,
The Fraunhofer USA Center provides solutions in coating technology and
characterization of semiconductor materials as well as protective coatings
for data storage media.
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By working together, Asmussen said, the university and Fraunhofer form
an organization that is stronger than the sum of the parts. There is also
work to get industry involved with the technology so research ideas can
be transferred to commercial applications. The university and the company
share laboratory space and have agreements for the intellectual properties.
“The integration between Fraunhofer and Michigan State has made those
things possible,” said Claire Rosser, marketing manager in the Coating
Technology Division of Fraunhofer. “There are MSU professors and
faculty working alongside experienced engineers. The different expertise
and complementary expertise help to offer truly integrated solutions to
our industry partners.”
One of the more promising endeavors centers on carbon and diamond. “There
are many different markets,” Asmussen said. “Diamond is sort
of a magicmaterial.”
Its hardness and other properties make it ideal for coatings on a variety
of items, from tools to MEMS devices. Fraunhofer developed a trademarked
diamond-like carbon film called Diamor that’s used for items that
receive high wear. The coating can be applied to metals, polymers, steel
and glass.
Researchers can even create a diamond paper that looks like cellophane.
Diamond materials could be a key in making small devices more efficient,
said Thomas Schuelke, division manager of the Coating Technology Division.
The highly conductive properties of diamond can transport heat out of
a device better than traditional materials. “Diamond has 10 to 15
times the heat conductivity of silicon, for example,” Schuelke said.
“These are the areas we're working on here. Diamond in that sense,
could be the key to solve those power density issues.”
But diamond materials are expensive to make, Asmussen said, which presently
can be prohibitive for some applications. “The problem is manufacturing
it at a low cost and in some cases with the proper electrical properties,”
he said. “Although the market is potentially huge, on the other hand
the cost of manufacturing is still relatively high. One of our activities
when we synthesize diamond is to lower cost.”
For more information, please contact cclinfo@fraunhofer.org
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