Innovation/Technology

Individual patient care is becoming increasingly important. On the one hand, this saves valuable resources, for example in terms of medication and diagnostic tools, and on the other hand helps to provide targeted medical treatment for patients' ailments.

Laser direct structuring (LDS) is a special success story. For almost 20 years, it has been possible to apply electronic conductor paths directly onto plastic parts during series production. LDS enables the production of electronic assemblies with flexible geometric shapes. This process enables electronic products, such as smartphones, sensors or medical devices, to become even smaller and more powerful. Automated manufacturing processes also make this process more economically attractive.

When WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admonished nations to “test, test, test”, back in March of this year, testing was already recognized as a key strategy in the fight against COVID-19. In response to this, the diagnostics industry has been racing to develop new high-speed test platforms that can quickly and accurately carry out the wide-scale testing needed.

Synthetic diamonds receive additional functionalities due to specific structural defects, which makes them react to magnetic fields or temperature changes, for example. Color centers are responsible for this, such as the nitrogen vacancy center (NV center). These NV-centers can be optically excited and read out and are therefore suitable as sensitive elements in sensors.

Neuer Sprecher von Fraunhofer Reinigung (FRei) und langjähriges Mitglied ist Diplom-Physiker Frank-Holm Rögner. Er leitet die Arbeitsgruppe Reinigung am Fraunhofer FEP und spricht im Interview über seinen Weg zur Reinigungstechnik, seine Visionen für die Zukunft und Weiterentwicklung der Fraunhofer Reinigung – ambitionierte Ziele und Kompetenzen, die die Experten zu bieten haben.

The corona pandemic with the new virus COVID-19 is turning our lives upside down and we are all confronted with a new and completely unexpected situation. At the moment we are increasingly asked by our customers: can you help with corona diagnostics with your micropump? That would be possible. Modern biotechnology needs microstructure technology.

Als regionales Innovationsnetz Optische Technologien sorgt Optence e.V. seit 19 Jahren für die Vernetzung von Industrie und Forschung und setzt sich für die Belange und Interessen seiner 110 Mitglieder ein. IVAM hat mit Geschäftsführerin Daniela Reuter über wirtschaftliche Potenziale optischer Technologien, Deutschlands Rolle im internationalen Markt, Start-up-Kultur und den 60. Geburtstag des Lasers gesprochen.

Cleanliness is key to many industries and applications, for example optics, industrial parts, surgical parts, electronics and others. Ultrasonic cleaning has been very widespread in many of these applications with fine structures. I am going to look at the challenges in cleaning finest micro-structures today and try to compare megasound to ultrasound in this context.

Microtechnology is one key enabler to get a grip of the Corona crisis: It enables medical devices to be more smart and compact and is qualified to make diagnostic methods better, more precise and much faster as before. Furthermore it opens up the possibility of transforming existing processes, components and systems at lightning speed so that completely new fields of application can be created in the fight against the virus.

Können Sie sich noch an die Medizintechnik der 1970er Jahre erinnern? Die Computertechnologie hat seitdem einiges möglich gemacht: In den letzten Jahrzehnten konnte die Behandlung von Krankheiten durch immer bessere technologische Lösungen für Diagnose und Therapie massiv vorangetrieben werden.