Our services

As an R&D services center the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST offers research and development into new materials, technologies, processes and installations in one basket - from concept to product.

Our skills and capabilities cover not only the pretreatment, coating and modification of surfaces but also process development, simulation, analysis and quality assurance. An important objective of our work will always be to transfer our developments into industrial application for our clients and partners.

In solving our tasks we deploy not only low-pressure and atmospheric-pressure plasma processes but also hot-filament CVD processes and electroplating.

Therefore we offer:

• Effective aqueous surface cleaning including drying
• Special glass cleaning
• Plasma pretreatment and plasma cleaning
• Plasma activation and plasma functionalization
• Wet-chemical etching pretreatment
• Particle beam

Our services are:

• Surface modification
• Development of coatings and layer systems
• Process technology (including process diagnostics, modeling and control)
• Simulation of optical layer systems
• Development of system components
• Process development
• Toolbuilding and plant engineering

We offer our customers:

• Chemical, micromorphological, and structural characterization
• Mechanical and tribological characterization
• Optical and electrical characterization
• Photocatalytic measuring technology
• Test methods and product specific quality control methods
• Rapid and confidential failure analysis
• Testing of corrosion resistance

• Cost-of-ownership calculations, development of economical production scenarios
• Prototype development, pilot production and sample coating procedures
• Equipment concepts and integration into manufacturing lines
• Consulting and training
• Research and development during production