47th Annual Society of Vacuum Coaters Technical Conference

Adam's Mark Dallas Hotel
Dallas, TX
April 24–29, 2004

TAC Chair's Preview – Smart Materials Symposium

Smart materials cover a wide and developing range of technologies. This symposium focuses on new and emerging functional materials and coatings with unique intelligent properties as indicators; protective coatings; and early warning of tampering, aging, biological, and chemical change. This symposium is composed of a cross-disciplinary group of investigators who want to integrate dynamic functions into future products. Products range from switchable windows, indicators, and sensors including nanotechnology to unique information displays. Presentations cover the research, development, and application aspects of these materials. Applications include health and drug delivery systems, indicating labels, imbedded systems, authentication and security, food safety packaging, biological detection, and self-cleaning surfaces. We welcome your participation.

Symposium organizers developed three special sessions entitled Smart Windows; Smart Materials and Technologies; and Advanced Materials, Glazing and Displays. These sessions will be presented on Wednesday and Thursday of the SVC Annual Technical Conference. Expect to learn about a variety of new materials and emerging technologies.

In the Smart Windows session we will hear an invited lecture about advances in electrochromic sunroofs for cars from Dr. Giron of Saint-Gobain. Saint-Gobain has been working in electrochromics for several years and works closely with the European automotive and aircraft industry. Carl Lampert of Star Science will present a review of the overall technology of switchable coatings and processes for glass and plastic. Dr. Lampert has worked on many switchable materials and display projects over the last 20 years, and will give his view of progress in the field. Professor Claes Granqvist of ChromGenics, Sweden, will discuss his work on new electrochromic visors for motorcycle helmets. Professor Granqvist is a well-known expert on the physics of advanced thin film materials. The field of electrochromic visors was able to develop because of new deposition techniques to coat plastic materials. Also, new techniques to oxidize and reduce films during manufacturing helped to automate the assembly of electrochromic plastic laminates. Work at Air Products with Dr. Henderson has compared the economics of sputtering versus PECVD to make electrochromic films. The economics of depositing these thick films has been a long-standing issue with developers.

Work by Greg Sottile of Research Frontiers will detail his survey of architects on the integration of smart windows into buildings. This study is very important because very little consensus information has been made public, and the results help the materials and product designers. Professor Ozer of San Francisco State University will present work on solgel deposition of electrochromic films. She has been working in this field for many years with a variety of organizations. Although not vacuum science, the solgel films can achieve very interesting properties, especially when lower densities and optical indices are required. Work by Professor Gesheva in Bulgaria will be presented covering CVD electrochromic films. She is well known in Bulgaria for work on photovoltaics and new materials and has worked at the Optical Science Center in Arizona. Student work at Vasavi College in India will detail the wider range of modified materials such as shape memory alloys and composite materials.

Our session on Smart Materials and Technologies covers a broader range of applications. The session will begin with an invited paper from the health industry detailing new multilayer smart-drug technology. Work at QinetiQ of the UK will cover advances in smart electro-optical pigments based on web coating. Their work will look at the manufacturing issues of producing these unusual coatings. John Madocks of Applied Process Technologies will discuss work on packaging barrier films deposited by PECVD. Oxygen and water vapor barrier films are a very important developing area for the protection of many products. Dr. Peter Martin of PNNL will discuss work on artificial lungs that involves photolytic electrochemistry. This is a fascinating area involving the use of ITO, photoactive TiO₂, and MnO₂ films. Mehran Mojarrad of Biomimetic Products will discuss a new generation of ionic polymeric composites for use as actuators and sensors. The field of micro and membrane sensors is growing rapidly with far reaching applications in biomedical, electronics, and robotics.

The session on Advanced Materials, Glazing, and Displays will cover an exciting range of technologies. Professor Hutchins of Oxford Brookes University, UK, will discuss infrared switching devices. Professor Hutchins is very well known in the field of energy-efficient materials. Mr. Minaai of Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG) will discuss work on the effects of outgassing in the super-insulating evacuated window. NSG has developed a factory to produce these windows. Ng Nelson of the University of Sydney, Australia, will discuss further work on evacuated glazing. Originally, the Professor Collins group in Australia developed evacuated glazing. Satoshi Takeda of Asahi Glass, Japan, will present a study on chemical modification of the surface of transition metal oxide films.

This work is very important for finding new and better hydrophobic or self-cleaning surfaces. We have a special talk by Avery-Dennison on freshness labels to tell us the history of packaged food. Also, another interesting talk will be given by a member of the Professor Finks’ group at MIT covering photonic materials that adapt to the environment.

Carl Lampert, Star Science (cmlstar@juno.com), is one of the organizers for the Smart Materials Symposium being sponsored by SVC.