Surfaces have a very important role for the function of many products. Surface treatments and coatings can modify the surface properties strongly and can thus contribute to achieve new or improved product functions. One of the most important areas of functional coatings is tribology, where hard and superhard coatings are applied to increase the wear resistance, to improve the anti-adhesion tendency or to change the friction coefficient of a substrate.

This school will give an introduction to the state of the art of tribological thin-film coatings: material composition, deposition processes and analysis techniques. This will be achieved by lectures as well as by practical demonstrations and trainings. This topic will be complemented by an introduction to Design of Experiments (statistical experiment planning).
The school is part of the Marie-Curie Initial Training Network "Macro, Micro and Nano Aspects of Machining - MaMiNa". It is open for MaMiNa Early Stage Reasearchers as well as for external participants. It addresses master students, doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers.
The school is split in part A that will take place in Lodz, Poland, and part B, which will take place in Braunschweig, Germany.