News

In recent years, extensive development work has revealed the potential of thermal spraying with fine powder suspensions with particle sizes in the sub-micrometer and nanometer range. Suspension spraying enables the fabrication of tailored coatings in which layer thicknesses, morphology and properties can be varied over an extremely extensive application range.

Today, new coatings on brake discs meet increasingly complex requirements. Conventionally, a destructive metallographic cross-section is used to check their quality. This method is expensive, slow and resource-intensive. Fraunhofer IWS researchers have now demonstrated that a fast and non-destructive evaluation can also be achieved using the LAwave^® method.

Hybrid manufacturing describes the combination of different manufacturing processes in order to implement targeted use of their advantages. Therefore, Fraunhofer IWS particularly focuses on combinations with additive manufacturing processes. Hybridization is used wherever – locally and geometrically limited – materials with optimized properties are required: for example, medical technology, automotive and plant engineering, and aerospace.

Fraunhofer IWS and Papiertechnische Stiftung PTS are jointly creating the basis for a binder-free paper joining process. They previously generated meltable reaction products by irradiating papers with a carbon monoxide laser (CO laser). The research team subsequently “bonded“ two papers in a heat-sealing process.

Brake discs are moving into focus as part of the current green-energy discussion. Fraunhofer IWS scientists have developed the HICLAD process concept to allow a maximization of corrosion and wear protection by tailored surface functionalization. A further focus includes the reduction of particulate emissions. An additional advantage of this technology is the cost-effective series production.

The Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig has elected Andrés Fabián Lasagni as a full member of the Technical Science Class. With this appointment, the TU Dresden professor joins the list of more than 200 renowned members of various disciplines. During the hybrid public fall session of the Academy on December 11, 2020, Lasagni will be formally admitted to the Academy in the presence of Sebastian Gemkow, Minister of State for Science of the Free State of Saxony.

Optical lithography has been considered a key technology for microchip production for more than 40 years. The new development towards EUV lithography extended the limits of the classi-cal technology by far. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS contribut-ed to the fact that now the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, ZEISS and TRUMPF have been awarded the “ Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2020”. The project "EUV Lithography – New Light for the Digital Age" focuses on the manufacturing method of the latest EUV microchip generation. Along the way to this success Fraunhofer IWS, together with Fraunhofer IOF and Fraunhofer ILT, has established several milestones in recent decades.

Prof. Martina Zimmermann becomes the first female president of the German Materials Society (DGM). She starts work on January 1, 2021. Together with Prof. Gerhard Schneider (Aalen University) she consti-tutes the dual leadership of the DGM for the period 2021/22 - both were elected at the virtual DGM gen-eral meeting at the end of September 2020.

A novel multimode fiber laser allows individual modifications of the laser beam shape within a few milliseconds – without using external optical elements. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS can now realize various applications from heat conduction welding to deep penetration welding with only one laser system. Following intensive tests of the high-power fiber laser in Dresden's laboratories, industrial customers are invited to cooperate with Fraunhofer IWS experts to discover the laser’s advantages for their specific applications.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS expands its equipment portfolio to advance its competencies in the research field of additive manufacturing. In addition to a binder jetter, a new cold-wall furnace has been added, allowing the two post-processing steps debinding and sintering to be carried out in one system. Along with the binder jetter, the Dresden institute now maps the complete manufacturing and machining process of components and makes it available to interested users as well as researchers who are involved in this additive manufacturing process.