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The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.
'How wonderfully intelligent evolution has designed the surfaces of plants and animals – visually attractive for the best choice of partner or safely protected for defence against enemies,' says materials researcher Frank Mücklich. Only the smallest microscopic structures make the difference. Thanks to special laser technology, these mostly regular patterns from nature can now also be transferred to material surfaces. 'We use the physical principle of interference, i.e. the superposition of waves. The light intensity of the laser beams is concentrated so extremely in small periodic patterns that they literally create microscopic structures on the surfaces at lightning speed,' explains the Saarbrücken professor.
The areas of application for this are very diverse, ranging from medicine and electromobility to space travel. 'For example, we can structure material surfaces in such a way that bacteria cannot adhere to them. This also makes them interesting for a manned space station on the moon,' explains Frank Mücklich. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, who studied with the Saarbrücken materials researcher, was able to test this extensively on the ISS. This will also be the subject of the Science Forum of the University Society of Saarland on 18 March.
Frank Mücklich is Professor of Functional Materials at Saarland University, founding director of the Material Engineering Center Saarland at Saarland University and spokesperson for the German Academy of Science and Engineering, acatech.
Registration for the Science Forum on 18 March is requested at: unigesellschaft(at)uni-saarland.de