Christian May

Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP is one of more than 70 Fraunhofer institutes and research units of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft e. V., the largest European institution for applied research [24,500 employees (qualified scientists and engineers); 2.1 billion Euros annual research budget in total]. The core competences of the FEP are electron beam technologies, vacuum thin film deposition techniques (Sputtering, Evaporation and PECVD) and technologies for manufacturing vacuum-deposited small molecule organic electronic devices in sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll processing on pilot scale. Main activities target development and adaption of the thin film deposition technologies to a wide range of industrial applications. Fraunhofer FEP runs three cluster batch coaters (up to 300 mm wafer), 5 pilot scale roll-to-roll vacuum web coaters (200 mm, 300 mm and 600 mm web width) and a set of sheet-to-sheet thin film coating machines (up to 1000 x 700 mm² substrate size) addressing different applications. One large department within FEP deals with nano-surface modification and thin film coating on plastic webs for packaging, membrane architecture, optical films, and flexible electronics application. FEP earns about 40% of its research budget from direct contract research for industry and SMEs focusing on innovation boosting activities from material development to process scaling to industrial levels, as e.g. done recently for a gas barrier coatings technology for food packaging films.