Month: September 2018

Melissa Sikosana breaks the wall of bacteria related deaths

On September 25th, Melissa Sikosana (ESR), has been awarded 3rd place by a distinguished jury, for “breaking the wall of bacteria related deaths”, at the “Falling Walls Lab Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Event“. This event was organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the European Parliament and supported by the Falling Walls Foundation.

The Falling Walls Lab challenging inter-disclipinary platform that invites talent academics, professionals and entrepreneurs from around the world to present breakthrough-research work, within 3 minutes, each to an audience of industry experts & decision makers.

Patricia Reilly, ‘Deputy Chief of Staff (or Deputy Chef de Cabinet) for EU Commissioner for Education Culture, Youth and Sport’ presented the award to Melissa.

FWL-award-Sikosana-2018-2

FWL-award-Sikosana-2018-1

Jean-Michel Romano awarded for his paper at WCMNM2018

JMR_WCMNM2018_awardOn the 20th September 2018, the World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing took place in Portoroz, Slovenia. Jean-Michel Romano, an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the Laser4Fun project, was awarded of the Honorable Mention Paper Award for his contribution entitled “Towards large area submicron surface texturing by femtosecond laser irradiation of microparticle arrays”.

The award was presented by the scientific committee chair: Dr. Irene Fassi, National Research Council (CNR), Italy; Dr. Samuel Bigot, Cardiff University, UK; and Prof. Dr. Joško Valentinčič, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

WCMNM2018 LogoWCMNM 2018 was jointly organised by the Multi Material Micro Manufacturing association (4M), the International Institution for Micro Manufacturing (I2M2) and the International Forum on Micro Manufacturing (IFMM).

Antonio García Girón and Jean-Michel Romano attended WCMNM 2018

JMR_at_WCMNM2018A delegation of the University of Birmingham participated in the 2nd World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing (WCMNM 2018) that took place on September 18-20, 2018 in Portoroz, Slovenia. WCMNM 2018 is a joint conference of the 13th International Conference on MicroManufacturing (ICOMM), the Multi Material Micro Manufacture (4M), and the International Forum on Micro Manufacturing (IFMM). It was the opportunity for ESRs Antonio García Girón and Jean-Michel Romano to disseminate results of the Laser4Fun project to a large community of micromanufacturing experts, coming from Northamerica, Europe and Japan.

FoWCMNM2018 Logor more information:
http://www.4m-association.org/conference/2018

Combined Surface Hardening and Laser Patterning for Producing Wear Resistant Hydrophobic Surfaces

Results of the work in the Laser4Fun project has been published as:

Antonio Garcia-Giron, Jean-Michel Romano, Y. Liang, Behnam Dashtbozorg, Hanshan Dong, Pavel Penchev, Stefan Dimov. Combined Surface Hardening and Laser Patterning for Producing Wear Resistant Hydrophobic Surfaces. 2nd World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing (September 2018); doi: 10.3850/978-981-11-2728-1_16

Abstract

This work reports a laser patterning method for producing surfaces with dual scale topographies on ferritic stainless steel plates that are hardened by low temperature plasma surface alloying. Nitrogen and carbon based gasses were used in the alloying process to obtain surface layers with an increased hardness from 172 HV to 1001 HV and 305 HV, respectively. Then, a nanosecond infrared laser was used to pattern the plasma treated surfaces and thus to obtain super-hydrophobicity, by creating cell- or channel-like surface structures. The combined surface hardening and laser patterning approach allowed super-hydrophobic surfaces to be produced on both nitrided and carburised stainless steel plates with effective contact angles higher than 150°. The hardened layers on nitrided samples had cracks and was delaminated after the laser patterning while on plasma carburised samples remained intact.  The results showed that by applying the proposed combined approach it is possible to retain the higher hardness of the carburised stainless steel plates and at the same time to functionalise them to obtain super-hydrophobic properties.

Towards Large Area Submicron Surface Texturing by Femtosecond Laser Irradiation of Microparticle Arrays

Results of the work in the Laser4Fun project has been published as:

Jean-Michel Romano, Rajib Ahmed, Antonio Garcia-Giron, Pavel Penchev, Olivier Dellea, Stefan Dimov. Towards Large Area Submicron Surface Texturing by Femtosecond Laser Irradiation of Microparticle Arrays. 2nd World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing (September 2018); doi: 10.3850/978-981-11-2728-1_10

Abstract

The direct laser submicron texturing of X6Cr17 stainless steel plates is reported. A hexagonal close-packed monolayer of 1um transparent silica microspheres deposited onto the metallic surface was irradiated with near-infrared femtosecond laser source to generate an array of Photonic Jets (PJ). The PJ intensity profiles were calculated by simulation. PJ full width at half maximum was estimated to be ~500nm on the surface. The influence of pulse energy and focal offset on material removal and microspheres’ ejection was studied. Different 1um-periodic submicron topographies were fabricated by a single-shot irradiation, i.e. ranging from 30nm-height bumps to 200nm-to-1um diameter holes. Consecutive multi pulse processing generated triangular laser-induced surfaces structures (LIPSS). In addition, the dry laser cleaning effect and large area texturing employing PJ were investigated.

Triangular self-organized surface textures produced by femtosecond laser irradiation on stainless steel and titanium alloy

Results of the work in the Laser4Fun project has been published as:

Jean-Michel Romano, Antonio Garcia-Giron, Pavel Penchev, Stefan Dimov. Triangular self-organized surface textures produced by femtosecond laser irradiation on stainless steel and titanium alloy. 2nd World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing (September 2018); doi: 10.3850/978-981-11-2728-1_09

Abstract

The large area uniformity of laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) on ferritic stainless steel and titanium alloy is studied. A single-step process was designed to generate low spatial frequency LIPSS (LSFL) over relatively large areas. For the first time, a new LIPSS morphology is fabricated using near-infrared ultrashort pulsed laser. Extraordinarily uniform self-organized triangular structures in hexagonal arrangements were fabricated in the subwavelength range. The generation of such LSFL was found to be highly repeatable, not material dependent but very sensitive to the used laser processing settings. Therefore, the sensitivity of triangular-LSFL formation to pulse fluence and scanning speed were investigated.

Vittorio Vercillo runner up of Best Speaker Award

Last 11th of September 140 people, among students, supervisors and management, gathered in the ZAL (Zentrum für Angewandte Luftfahrtforschung) facilities in Hamburg for the 11th edition of the Airbus PhD Day 2018. Vittorio Vercillo, an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the Laser4Fun project, was awarded of the Best Speaker Award, Runner Up, for his contribution “Laser micro-/nano-structuring to produce icephobic surfaces”. In the picture, Vittorio receives the award from Dr. Michael Schoenwetter, Airbus R&T Partnerships & Contracting.

VERCILLO-Phd-Day-2018
Vittorio Vercillo (left) receives the award from Dr. Michael Schoenwetter

Contribution to The Laser User magazine

AILU magazine coverSome research performed within the Laser4Fun consortium was advertised in the The Laser User magazine (Issue 89 Summer 2018). The “Focus on Research” section highlighted the work of the University of Birmingham on DLW applied to anti-wetting and anti-icing properties, performed in collaboration with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Airbus Group Innovation.

The Laser User magazine is edited quarterly by the Association of Lasers Users (AILU), the UK industrial/academic laser community.

To read the article: AILU Focus on Research