Quo Vadis surface functionalization: How direct laser interference patterning tackle productivity and flexibility in industrial applications

Surfaces with well-defined features (e.g. periodic structures) have shown to exhibit outstanding properties. The design of these textured surfaces often follows a biomimetic approach motivated by living organisms which developed over time through natural selection and evolution. The efficient production of these versatile patterns still represents one of the greatest technical challenges today in the development of new customized surface functionalities. Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) has been identified as an outstanding technology for the efficient fabrication of tailored surface structures. This method can show impressive processing speeds (up to 1 m/min) as well as a superior flexibility in producing extremely versatile surface structures. This work gives an overview about recent developments of the DLIP technology by focusing on the topics: structure flexibility, process productivity, technical implementations and recent examples of achieved surface functionalities.