How nanotechnology is breaking boundaries in luxury watches: Hermès’ incorporated a photolithography technique for its Cape Cod Crépuscule while Tag Heuer patented a carbon composite hairspring

Mar 6 , 2023

Zenith Defy Skyline 36mm with a blue dial. Photo: Zenith

Luxury brands continue to explore the possibilities of nanotechnology in haute horlogerie, allowing updates in increased miniaturisation, precision and reliability in its designs

Zenith’s Julien Tornare says that using this technology allows the brand to ‘think outside the box’, as it constantly updates models like the Chronomaster El Primero and its Pilot watches

Ever since spring-powered clocks were developed in 15th century Europe, watchmakers have strived to advance the science behind haute horlogerie. First, the mainspring was brainstormed as a mechanism for powering a clock. This apparatus stopped the cracking and weakening of a timepiece’s movement so it could withstand numerous cycles.

Next came the balance wheel, which ensures that movements are able to keep regular time, invented in the mid-17th century by Dutch mathematician and all-round know-it-all Christiaan Huygens. And, of course, any collector worth their salt knows about Abraham-Louis Breguet’s tourbillon that rotates a timepiece’s movement to counter the negative effect of Earth’s gravity.

Tag Heuer creates hairsprings using silicone wafers and iron atoms. Photo: Tag Heuer

A lot has changed in the years since, with improved materials and methods allowing for increased miniaturisation, precision and reliability. Now, another wave of innovation is breaking over the field of watchmaking: nanotechnology, the study and manipulation of matter on a near-atomic scale to produce novel structures and materials.

For years, the academic community has been jumping up and down in excitement over how this science could be applied to numerous industries – in everything from healthcare to renewable energy.

The Hermès Cape Cod Crépuscule with its distinctive 3D dial by designer/graphic artist Thanh Phong Lê. Photo: Hermès

Now watchmakers are starting to take notice, with Hermès incorporating nanotechnology into its novelties for 2023. The Crepuscule – “dusk” in French – is the new iteration of the brand’s emblematic Cape Cod watch. Designed by artist Thanh Phong Lê, the dial features a pensive piece of graphic art depicting a setting sun reflected in water.

One of Switzerland’s leading silicon experts, the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, was commissioned to complete the dial, shaped using a silicon wafer just 0.5mm thick. To reach the intensity of colour requested by the maison, a nanotechnology procedure called photolithography was used to transfer Phong Lê’s motif onto the silicon, which was then coated in yellow gold.

Tag Heuer is also experimenting with nanotechnology and has patented a carbon composite hairspring, which comprises of rolled-up sheets, each just a single layer of carbon atoms. The hairspring is attached to a watch’s balance wheel to help mechanical timepieces keep accurate time. “Our hairspring is at the very heart of our movements,” says Emmanuel Dupas, director of the Tag Heuer Institute. “We developed our own hairspring based on a carbon nanotube scaffold, which is filled with amorphous carbon. Carbon nanotubes have extremely narrow diameters but can be very long.”

The Hermès Cape Cod Crépuscule depicts a setting sun reflected in water. Photo: Hermès

Such nano-scale materials and structures often have excellent mechanical properties. “Imagine a dense forest where all the trees are nanotubes,” says Dupas. “We weld the nanotubes together by filling the gaps between them with amorphous carbon.” This increases the hairspring’s wear resistance and strength, while keeping it extremely light and protected from magnetism.