Optical technologies create growth and employment

By means of research funding under the High-Tech Strategy, optical technologies have become one of the outstanding fields of German excellence worldwide. Optical technologies "Made in Germany" are a dominant feature of many industries - from electronics to mechanical engineering to medicine.

Coherent light - the laser - has become an important precision tool, above all for industrial production, communication technology and medicine. But also incoherent light (lamps, lights, LED, photovoltaics) is successfully used by means of German technology. German companies and research institutions are active in these markets worldwide. Optical technologies are key technologies for the innovation alliances of the High-Tech Strategy, such as "Organic Light-Emitting Diodes" (OLED 2015), "Organic Photovoltaics" (OPV) and "Molecular Imaging". They consistently rely on the pooling of existing strengths for new markets.

With about 100,000 employees in Germany, optical technologies are an impressive industry. All in all, the companies invest about 1.6 billion euros each year in research and development (R&D). The R&D share of turnover is about 9.7 percent. This field of technology is already influencing about 16 percent of all jobs in the manufacturing industry.

Over the past 20 years, Germany has developed into a world market leader in many fields of laser technology. Germany accounts for 40 percent of the world market and thus for a share of 2.5 billion euros for high-performance laser technology for materials processing. It holds a market share of 12 percent of the light of the future - of LEDs. Germany also holds the record for the efficiency of LEDs with 150 lumen/watt (lm/W). Particularly great growth is predicted for the new light, i.e. LED and OLED.