News

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.

Some 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

From October 1st up to and including October 5th, the third Summer school for (and by) PhD students of the Laser4Fun project is organised and hosted by CNR IFN and Politecnio di Bari in Bari, Italy. The topic of the summer school is “Laser Micro/Nanostructuring and Surface Tribology”.

Filigree engravings on external surfaces of aircraft are intended to ensure that airflow remains smooth and drag on the aircraft low. For this, engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS, the Technische Universität Dresden and Airbus have developed a laser process that produces textured surfaces at high throughput making surface contamination more difficult.
More details can be found at:

• https://www.iws.fraunhofer.de/en/pressandmedia/press_releases/2018/presseinformation_2018-08.html
• https://www.iws.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/iws/en/documents/press/2018/PM-2018_08_fraunhofer_iws_lotuseffekt_laser_dlip_en.pdf (PDF)

The 19th International Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication (LPM 2018, www.lpm2018.org) takes place on June 25-28, 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. This symposium is the world’s number one meeting of the laser user community where the most advanced developments and recent trends in laser application for fine and precise fabrication of diverse materials are discussed between industry, research and academia.

Today, Tuesday June 26th, a whole session was dedicated to presentations by near all our ESRs, disseminating results from the Laser4Fun project.

Photo: Giuseppe Giannuzzi

On June 19th ESRs Luigi Capuano and Marek Mezera attended the Photonics Event 2018 in Enschede, The Netherlands, see https://photonics-event.nl/home-eng/. This event is the annual meeting point for the photonics community in the Benelux and Germany. At this event researchers, developers, designers and engineers working in the application and development of photonics meet to discuss the latest trends and developments. For companies from end markets such as Agriculture, Food, Healthcare, Lifescience or the High-tech Systems sector, it is a good opportunity to get acquainted with the technology and the companies that can support development.

Airbus Group innovation, an industrial partner of the Laser4Fun project, was interviewed in the TV programme Futuris from euronews. The team of Elmar Bonaccurso and Vittorio Vercillo (an ESR in the project) highlighted that the environmental-friendly manufacturing and durability of engineered surfaces with superhydrophobicity and anti-icing properties are at the centre of the preoccupation of the aerospace industry. By considering laser-texturing processes, the project Laser4Fun is offering an alternative to chemical coating of aircraft wings.

For a videoclip point your webbrowser to: http://www.euronews.com/2018/05/28/phobic2ice-an-alternative-to-chemically-de-icing-planes

The 10th International Laser Symposium & International Symposium »Tailored Joining« on February 27 & 28, 2018 was organised by the Fraunhofer IWS at the International Congress Center in Dresden, Germany. Because in the “manufacturing of the future” the digitalization of laser material processing is becoming increasingly important, the motto of the symposium was “Industry 4.0”.

During the “laser-micromachining” sessions, delegates from the Laser4Fun-consortium presented the latest results from the Laser4Fun project:

• Gert-Willem Römer (University of Twente, The Netherlands): Laser-induced Periodic Surface Structures  (LIPPS), fundamentals and applications,
• Antonio Ancona (CNR-IFN, Italy / University West, Sweden): Ultrafast laser surface micro-texturing to  tailor lubricated friction of steel,
• José Luis Ocana (UPM Laser Centre, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain): Direct generation of superhydrophobic  microstructures in metals by UV laser  sources in the nanosecond regime,
• Rainer Kling (ALPHANOV, France) Functionalization of technical surfaces with ultra-short pulsed lasers,
• And 2 posters by Sabri Alamri and Alfredo Aguilar Morales.

Last, but not least, the Laser4Fun-delegates joined in a fruitful panel discussion about the future of laser-micromachining, together with other presenters of the micromachining session.

On February 2nd and 3rd, 2018, ESRs Alfredo Aguilar Morales and Sabri Alamri attended the 5th MCCA General Assembly of the Marie-Curie Fellows at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Both ESRs presented a poster with results of the Laser4Fun project. More info can be found at https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/events/2018-mcaa-conference-general-assembly

Jean-Michel Romano, an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the Laser4Fun project, joined in October 2017 the Early Career Researchers (ECR) Committee of the UK Association of Industrial Laser Users (AILU). His role is to produce columns for AILU’s magazine “The Laser User” and therefore to dissimenate research activities to the laser community in the UK. More info on: http://www.ailu.org.uk/association/ecr_111217.html