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8 Jana Dichelle Unplanned stroke of genius Moths don’t have it easy. Among the animal kingdom, they aren’t really our favorites; holes in our winter coats and kamikaze runs into our candles just don’t make a good impression. But Susanne Gaumitz, optical engineer in the Optoelectronic Systems business unit, can still gain something from them. Or more precisely: from their eyes. Because the fluttering insect is a master of antireflectivity from which human optical expert could learn something indeed. The facetted eyes of nocturnal moths always stay entirely black – no reflected light betrays the moth to its enemies, and they use the meager light of dusk optimally to find their own food. The reason are tiny bumps no greater than 100 nanometers in size that are packed onto the surface of the facetted eyes and can be seen only under an electron microscope. The regular pattern of bumps is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. So the light is not abruptly reflected. Instead, where the eye and the air meet, the index of refraction has a gentle, continuous transition – resulting in nearly perfect antireflective properties. Imitating nature with purple plasma. “When we want to find out the things nature is telling us, we humans need enormous technical effort,” says Susanne Gaumitz about the vacuum chamber in which she manufactures artificial moth eye structures. The young engineer is responsible at Jen- optik for a team of six people, along with the new task lovingly called “Nanomoth” in company jargon. She studied ophthalmic optics at Jena University of Applied Sciences, intending to work in the technology field later – until the variety of optical coatings captured her heart. Now she operates the touch screen for the plasma ion source. The source is in a vacuum chamber sealed by a heavy door something like a safe’s. Once the vacuum is established, the violet plasma can shine, beautiful behind its view glass. But what you can’t see is important: the plasma ions are fired at a lens and etch a structure into it – similar to that placed on the moth’s eye by nature. Assistance from Mr. Accident. It was a stroke of luck that revealed this antireflective technique to Jenoptik. While researchers around the world were looking systematically for ways to produce the moth’s eye structure, Dr. Peter Munzert at Jena’s Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Fine Mechanics (IOF) more or less stumbled on it. “Historically, we’ve really only used plasma treatments to prepare surfaces so that the coating will hold better afterwards. But I was entirely surprised once when I measured the transmission after preparation. The light transmission of a PMMA disk
The perfect antireflective coating, self-organizing: Fraunhofer Institute and Jenoptik are emulating moth’s eyes with plasma etching. (better known as Plexiglas) had actually improved after plasma etching. You would really have expected it to get worse, since you normally see absorption losses in this kind of situation,” recalls Munzert, educated as a plastic engineer. But look: Under an electron microscope, it is clear that the plasma etching produces very small structures that were very similar to those eagerly sought in the moth’s eye. And miraculously, in a selforganizing manner, without planned intervention. It works – but why? Exactly how and why that happened, that is, how the ions were able to structure the surface at such small intervals and with such regularity, is something that nobody knows yet. “Our institute has set up our own research projects to make sense of it,” says Peter Munzert. But even without an exact clarification of the “why”, the discovery was quickly used in practice. The duration and intensity of the ion beam were refined until the aspect ratio of the structures, that is, the relationships between height, width, and gaps between them, were ideal. Then it was time to give the child a name and let it out into the world. The patent was filed under the name of ARplas®, and Jenoptik was one of the first licensees. For two years now, Jenoptik has offered moth’s eye antireflective coating using plasma etching as a commercial product. The left half of the lens is coated with Nanomoth and the right one is not. In the red box the moth eye structure under the electron microscope: The microscope images of moth eye structures both natural and from plasma etching show an uncanny resemblance to each other. From the lab to the production plant in record time. The smoothness of the invention’s transition from basic research into the business world was even awarded a prize. The team at the Fraunhofer Institute were pleased to accept the Thuringian Research Prize in February, 2012. At Jenoptik, meanwhile, collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute continues – people talk on the phone or email, and in the worst case the 50 km between Triptis and Jena aren’t much of a distance by car. “The physical proximity helps,” says Susanne Gaumitz, naming one success factor for the Nanomoth in Triptis. “We’ve worked intensively together for years, of course, on the development of optical coatings,” adds Peter Munzert. © Fraunhofer-Institut IOF 9
Page 1 and 2: focus Magazine of the Jenoptik Grou
Page 3 and 4: 20 24 28 LEGAL NOTICE Publisher: JE
Page 5 and 6: abroad. a pioneering role within Je
Page 7: services valued at over 40 million
Page 11 and 12: Highlight for Peter Munzert (2 nd f
Page 13 and 14: Precision ensures quality. That’s
Page 15 and 16: to computing with rounded values. T
Page 17 and 18: Things are on fire, smoke everywher
Page 19 and 20: The Jena FireCam team proudly prese
Page 21 and 22: Since 2008, the growth market of In
Page 23 and 24: Facts and Figures about India. Name
Page 25 and 26: clean air. Microwave technology now
Page 27 and 28: The ubiquity of microwave technolog
Page 30 and 31: 30 Biography of Yvette Kaiser Smith
Page 32: 32 JENOPTIK AG Carl-Zeiß-Straße 1

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