Project description
Optimising 3D metasurfaces for optical products
Surface treatments provide manufactured materials with enhanced functions, capabilities and properties. Where optical products are concerned, bulky materials and surface coating methods often generate a significant environmental footprint. The EU-funded FABulous project aims to take advantage of advances in multiphoton lithography and process modelling to develop tools that will create micro-scale, high-resolution 3D metasurfaces. These metasurfaces will be able to regulate light with greater flexibility on a variety of substrates, thus enabling the design of smaller, lighter and more eco-friendly optical components such as those of cameras, vehicle lights and photovoltaic cells. These tools will be scaled for industrial use and integrated into a platform with a quality assurance and control system.
Objective
FABulous will develop an industrial surface ‘coating’ technology that exploits breakthroughs in multiphoton lithography and process modelling to manufacture high resolution 3D metasurfaces at a throughput viable for series production. These metasurfaces will be capable of manipulating light with unprecedented flexibility and will open the possibility of designing and manufacturing smaller, lighter, and more environmentally friendly products, through the replacement of bulky components and/or the chemical coatings currently used to enhance the efficiency and performance of optical products.
The project will explore novel methods for rapid (>10cm2/min) micro-fabrication of high-resolution (smaller than 200nm) 3D structures, and the development of new production tools to optimise the design and integration of the metasurfaces into functional products. These innovations will then be scaled for commercial applications and integrated into an industrial platform with a quality assurance and control system, enabling the fabrication of 3D metasurfaces on a range of substrates with unprecedented productivity, resolution, flexibility, and reliability.
The application of the technology and its potential to contribute to the design and manufacturing of more sustainable and circular European goods will also be demonstrated in a series of uses cases. The platform will be used to coat optical components (lenses, light pipes, and micro-optics arrays) with custom metasurfaces, and demonstrate that these components, when integrated into the design and manufacturing of functional optical systems (cameras, automotive lights and PV cells), can significantly improve their efficiency whilst in parallel reducing their environmental footprint.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsoptical sensors
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
36410 Porrino
Spain