Iconiq Innovation helped create and has collaborated with the EU SYNTECS project over 38 enjoyable months. In this case our role in the delivery phase was non-technical, we actively supported the partners to maximise the commercial impact of their developments, strategically manage intellectual property, and explore pathways to secure future innovation funding. The latter is important as the laser surface texturing techniques developed by LASEA, Fusion Bionic, Fraunhofer IWS, MTC and University of Birmingham are now proven to have significant performance impacts for thermal management, bonding, surface drag reduction, hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity characteristics and more but need more real-world development to deliver the maximum benefits. The impressive hardware and software exist, now they need to be deployed into industry.
Iconiq Innovation are constantly reviewing the funding landscape, assessing emerging technologies and putting together collaborations for successful projects. We unlock innovation potential by securing the financial resources that transform groundbreaking ideas into reality. We drive visionary projects from initial concept and consortium building through to proposal development and ongoing innovation support — guided at every step by our commitment to excellence, integrity, collaboration, and resilience. The advances made in SYNTECS will be incorporated as either the key technology or a support technology to some our future funding applications.
The technology in action
If you would like to explore some of the SYNTECS technology the following links showcase some case study work.
Thermal management in electronics
Automotive mould tool case study
A brief technical summary:
The SYNTECS project utilised low power-consumption (50 to 500 watts) lasers and combined laser technologies, to produce nano and micro level modifications, simultaneously or in sequence, on a single surface.
• Direct Laser Writing (DLW). A femtosecond or nanosecond pulsed laser source guided through lenses and a scanning module to create micro and nano sized periodic or repeating structures.
• Laser Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSS). A subset of DLW which makes self-organised grating or bump-like structures using lasers manipulated by polarisation filters as well as lenses and scanning modules.
• Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) bridges the gap between DLW and LIPSS and can be used in combination with either. This technique splits the laser into 2 or 3 beams which are combined on the surface to produce interference patterns that make line or pattern-based periodic structures 1 to 20 micrometres in size.
About Iconiq Innovation
Iconiq led the SYNTECS consortium to secure EUR 6 million though the call “Products with complex functional surfaces (Made in Europe Partnership) (HORIZON-CL4-2022-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-02)”. Our part in the delivery of the project was to actively support the partners to maximise the commercial impact of their developments, strategically manage intellectual property, and explore pathways to secure future innovation funding (a ask which continues post-project).
About the SYNTECS project
SYNTECS is derived from the project title SustainablY aNd digiTally driven hiErarchical laser texturing for Complex Surfaces. The project started in 2022 and finished in January 2026 and is funded through Horizon Europe and Innovate UK.
The project was coordinated by Fraunhofer IWS/IML (DE) and the consortium consisted of several European partners:
LASEA (BE), Fusion Bionic (DE), Farplas (TR), 3Drivers (PT), CRF (IT), DePuy (Ireland) (IE), MTC (UK), IPC (FR), University of Birmingham (UK), IST-ID (PT), Iconiq Innovation (UK), EWF (PT), European Thermodynamics (UK)
To find out more visit https://syntecs-laser.eu
Contacts
Iconiq: Chris Hare (Project Delivery Team – Iconiq): chris.hare@iconiqinnovation.com
Fraunhofer IWS: Christoph Zwahr (Division Lead Laser Precision Manufacturing: christoph.zwahr@iws.fraunhofer.de
The SYNTECS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the HORIZON-CL4-2022-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-02 grant agreement 101091515. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Header image: Photo by Miguel Alcântara on Unsplash