Innovative light sources open up new vistas

Beeing invited by PhotonicNet and the Technical University of Claus­thal, about one hundred people shared a wonderful time travelling through almost one century of research and develop­ment of light – starting with Einsteins basic explanations and ending up with cutting-edge ultrashort pulses and organic lasers. Moreover, an important focus of the event was the award ceremony of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Forschungspreis 2007 (see below).

Not only the dignified ambience of the Aula Regis, but also the prominent speakers were worth the travel to the beautiful town of Goslar near the Harz mountains: Dr. h.c. Werner Späth, former head of development at Siemens/ Osram Opto Semiconductors, shared alomost all stages of the “silent revolution” of light sources. “To have a long breath and to believe in what you do was always very important.”

It was worth to stick to it: Todays LEDs shine 100 times brighter than in the beginning. Fibre optics made of Silica reach bit rates of 10 Terabit/s. And the efficiency of high power lasers reaches 70 percent now. The following speaker, former CEO of Trumpf Laser, Paul Seiler, gave an impressive review of laser history from the first laser light by Theodore Maiman in 1960 up to today’s lasers, i.e. highly specialized tools for industry and research. He underlined the importance of the laser funding by the BMFT in the eighties, especially by supporting joint projects between research and industry in order to reach a leading position on the world market.

Two academic experts gave a glance on current research in this field: Professor Riedle from LMU Munich is working on femtosecond pulses as an important tool to measure very fast processes or precise material processing; Professor Kowalsky from Brunswick is specialized in organic materials in electronic and photonic fields, enabling, i.e. organic displays (OLED) or, still far from market launch, organic lasers.

With a vivid and humorous lecture about “Einstein and the modern optics”, Professor Danzmann, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), pointed out, that without Einstein, we wouldn’t have reached the current state of research. Einstein's theory of space, time and gravity predicted a number of new phenomena as the so-called gravitational waves, an important field of study of Danzmann’s institute in Hanover.

The LAUREATES

A complete novel display-technology convinced the jury: The Kaiser-Friedrich-Forschungspreis 2007 was awar­ded to the Institute for High Frequency Tech­nology (TU Brunswick). With a special active-matrix the resear­chers obtain essential efforts towards highly transparent organic displays. Compared with LCD-Displays, OLED promise brilliant colours, less weight and lower costs of production. The latest improvement will enable a wide range of applications as in-time surgery-support, coope­rative construction or even vir­tual artwork. Dr. Jochen Stöbich, who funded the price of 15.000 Euro, wants to encourage researcher to create innovative ideas which is indeed the basis of entre­preneurial success. “The optical technologies have very high potentials and are worth to keep an eye on!”

Further informations:

Dr. Thomas Riedl
Institut für Hochfrequenztechnik
TU Braunschweig
Schleinitzstr. 22
38106 Braunschweig
Tel.: 0531 / 391-2008
Fax: 0531 / 391-2045
Mail: t.riedl@tu-bs.de