A wide group of Spanish researchers involved in a large integration project funding by the Spanish Government (i.e., project FUNCOAT dedicated to the surface functionalization of Materials)  organized a one-day Workshop entitled ‘Coatings and surface functionalization of materials for optical applications‘ (OPTO-COAT 2012) in the Mediterranean city of Alicante (Spain), 31st May. This meeting was running in parallel as a satellite workshop of the XII National Conference of Materials, within the activities of the Spanish Network on Surface Engineering and Thin Films (INGESNET). Al-NanoFunc work package leader Agustin R. Gonzalez-Elipe was one of the organizers of this meeting.

This one day national workshop addressed the last advances in optical coatings and other nanostruc­tured supported systems of great importance for the development of integrated structures and other advanced photonic components. Three main areas of R&D in this topic were particularly considered: photonics, solar energy recovery and classical optical applications of thin films. The scope of the meeting covered fundamental and applied aspects, encompassing the latest advances in fabrication technologies, the analysis and properties of the films and nanostructures, as well as the modeling of their photonic behavior.

Members of Al-NanoFunc project attended to this meeting, Francisco Yubero, Jorge Gil-Rostra, Francisco Garcia-Garcia from SINCAF; Vanda Godinho and Jaime Caballero-Hernandez from NanoMatMicro.

Jaime Caballero-Hernandez presented a poster entitled: “Microstructural characterization of magnetron sputtered porous silicon coatings”. This work, focused on the microstructure of porous silicon coatings was supported by Al-NanoFunc.