The world’s largest trade fair devoted to laser and photonics technology ended on Thursday, 26 May, in Munich, Germany, hitting an all-time high. Attendance for LASER World of Photonics 2011 grew 8% over last year, with show organizers announcing 27,500 visitors and more than 1100 exhibitors, also a record. Medical technology, biophotonics, renewable energies and electro-mobility were named as the major growth areas for the laser industry.
The trade fair is accompanied by the World of Photonics Congress, a convention that attracted 3250 participants from all corners of the world. The congress includes seven sub-conferences, one of which— the European Conference on Biomedical Optics ECBO—has become the largest event of its kind in Europe. Topics such as advanced microscopy techniques, optical coherence tomography and therapeutic laser applications were addressed at the ECBO this year, attracting clinicians and industry developers as well as people from the research community.
20th Anniversary of OCT
A joint session of ECBO and CLEO Europe celebrated the 20th anniversary of optical coherence tomography (OCT) with a technology and applications tutorial by OCT pioneer James G. Fujimoto . The actual ECBO plenary on the OCT history was presented by Wolfgang Drexler of the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) under the headline “Twenty years of optical coherence tomography: where is it heading?”
Billions for Photonics
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) unveiled its promotional package “Photonics Research Germany” on the trade fair’s opening day. Optical technologies are held to be one of the most important key technologies of the future. The announcement by Dr. Georg Schütte, Secretary of State at the BMBF, of a total of one billion euros over the next ten years to promote research and development in the photonics sector was warmly received by the public, as the trade show organizer touted. Germany’s famous FAZ had a slightly different view on the event: According to FAZ, the community expected some € 150 Million annually. It has to be seen in contrast to the funding programs for nano technology (€ 400 million until 2015) or e-mobility (€ 1.000 million until 2013!). Nevertheless, the industry partners in the field of photonics promised some € 30 billion investments in R&D for the next 10 years, assuming to spend 10% of their expected revenues of € 300 billion.
Ultrafast Lasers on the Rise
After decades of development, ultrafast lasers finally arrived in the manufacturing industry. This is at least one important news from this years LASER World of Photonics. Ultrafast lasers generate femto or pico second light pulses and were popular in science for the research on nature’s ultrafast phenomena such as photosynthesis. But severe technical improvements were necessary to qualify the systems for use in material processing. First they were applied to eye surgery, but now with more than 1 kW average power available from one source, they are ready for industry applications such as micro processing or surface modification.
LASER World of Photonics takes place every other year in Munich; it returns to the Messe München in 2013 from 17 to 20 June.
