“What would our world be like without lasers?”

Lasers are everywhere, whether at the supermarket checkout to read the bar code or in automobile factories to weld aluminum parts together with high-power lasers. It is hard to imagine our current everyday life, as well as the industry, without lasers.

Laser World of Photonics has been held every two years for the past 20 years. It is the world’s leading platform for the laser and photonics industry. It is one of the central platforms for presenting the latest ideas and exchanging technical information with international customers. This year it took place from April 26 to 29 in Munich and was visited by more than 15,000 visitors who were able to marvel at 900 exhibitors from more than 30 countries. The top exhibiting countries after Germany included the USA, France, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Also a part of our staff visited the fair in Munich on April 27.

The larger companies showed a wide variety of industrial and scientific uses. Different applications like material recognition over data communication to thermal processing are possible.

The Start-Up Area also showed super interesting and novel approaches, such as how optimal plant growth in a hydroponic environment can be ensured by wavelength-specific lighting. 

As a premiere this year, the World of QUANTUM was held in parallel for the first time and met with great interest. It is currently the world’s largest platform for networking science, industry and users from the field of quantum technology. Particularly fascinating for us was, for example, the IBM quantum computer. IBM tried to remedy this with a novel augmented reality booth. IPads displayed the complex structures here.

Photo: Messe München

The exciting and application-oriented lecture program on the current application areas of lasers and photonics formed the supporting program to the trade show.

All in all, our visit to the trade show was an eventful day with many interesting inputs and discussions that gave us valuable ideas for upcoming projects.

Photo: Messe München