10:10 am
Microsoft Teams

Abstract

Optical coatings and films are the foundation of many 3M products ranging from traffic signage and high visibility safety garments to films that enhance features such as brightness of LCD and OLED displays. These highly engineered coatings and films modulate the transmission, reflection, and/or absorption of light in unique ways. This talk will dive into the polymer and nanoparticle materials used in water-borne optical coatings with specific focus on a specialty coating method called layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly. LbL coating is a multi-step process that deposits oppositely charged materials with highly controlled nanoscale thickness. This talk will include a description of this technology along with four application vignettes. In addition, an overview of 3M Company and the 3M Corporate Research Lab will be provided to give perspective on industrial R&D.

Bio

Daniel Schmidt is an Advanced Research Specialist in the Corporate Research Materials Laboratory at 3M. Daniel holds Bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan and MIT, respectively. For the past 10 years at 3M, he has conducted R&D on multiple optically functional coatings, especially for high visibility and display applications.