Light is the tool of the future. Although today Europe is in the leading position in the world market for photonics in industrial production, European companies need innovation to further defend their position and to adopt novel technologies in order to keep up with the world wide development.
A quantum leap has taken place by the introduction of photonics technologies in production processes on macro-, micro- and nanoscale in the past decades. Several European key economic fields have changed profoundly and the production process has been improved tremendously in terms of flexibility, precision, quality, cost structure and productivity.
In the automotive industry, for example, the use of laser processing systems for cutting and welding has fundamentally improved both, productivity and quality.
As shown below, the world market for laser material processing will grow up significantly.
A quantum leap has taken place by the introduction of photonics technologies in production processes on macro-, micro- and nanoscale in the past decades. Several European key economic fields have changed profoundly and the production process has been improved tremendously in terms of flexibility, precision, quality, cost structure and productivity.
In the automotive industry, for example, the use of laser processing systems for cutting and welding has fundamentally improved both, productivity and quality.
As shown below, the world market for laser material processing will grow up significantly.
Thus, it points up the considerable economic potential of photonics in Europe.
In the future:
Within the next 10 to 15 years the photon will be used in many fields of production, parts of them are already known and a majority will be new applications.
Besides the field of cutting and welding, the field of optical micro processing is already emerging and is predicted to have a very bright future by using high brilliance lasers. The reason is that our daily life objects are becoming ever smaller and smarter. Therefore, the photon’s properties are adapted very meaningfully to the production processes of these goods. Furthermore, a pulsed laser in the pico- or femtosecond regime allows for an outstanding precision and enables completely new applications. Machine vision has become a synonym for competitive manufacturing and for novel, innovative processes and products covering virtually all industrial sectors and areas of modern life. As the “eye of the machine” it gives devices and machines the sense of visual perception: Cameras are used to generate images of objects (parts, products) and to derive information from these images. This information is used to verify processes, perform diagnostic tasks and take automated intelligent decisions – with absolute reliability and at an extremely high speed. Although machine vision already plays a major role in the manufacturing industry, it is estimated that only approximately 20% of the possible applications have been realized. Further examples of large future industrial fields of photonics in manufacturing are biotechnology, the procession of new and artificial materials and medical applications.
Therefore, a large potential remains to be tapped to further
- increase productivity and competitiveness (with a view to keeping production and employment in Europe),
- increase the product quality and lower manufacturing costs,
- raise the quality economically to a 100%-level,
- enable innovative and novel “new generation” products and processes,
- raise the quality of life,
- avoid waste, reduce energy consumption and protect the environment,
- increase safety and security in people’s daily lives and at the work place.
The pressure to relocate the production of simple mass-produced goods as well as of high tech products to low-wage countries continues to increase. This does not only endanger blue-collar jobs in Europe, but will also have an impact on white-collar jobs in research, engineering and management. The only answer to this development is to dramatically increase production speeds, process efficiency, product quality and innovation.
over 2000 companies and 700 research labs involved in Photonics in Europe
