New tools for laser light
Founder form Photonic Tools at the start
The metal workpieces which sit on the window sill in Björn Wedel's brand new office are not exhibitions pieces for his newly founded company Photonic Tools. Rather, they remind the 47-year-old of his successful past and of everything that is possible as the founder of a company. He dared to make a new start after 16 years with his companion and university friend Bernhard Lummer. Same industry, the latest technology and without the American investors, the operative involvement of whom in the jointly-founded company HIGHYAG was the reason for their exit.
But the heads and computers of the two physics graduates are full of new ideas for products. Their company logo is a spanner which is working on a green laser beam and a lens. It symbolises the development of special laser tools which they want to use to make ultrashort pulse lasers more fit for use for industrial material processing. Using lasers for this is nothing new. You can use them to bore holes, weld
materials or cut them apart. "In the past few years, the development of ultrashort pulse lasers has advanced so much that we want to bring that into industrial applications too," says Wedel.
The advantage of this laser technology is that the extremely high energies which are focused on a workpiece in very short laser pulses enable a higher level of flexibility in the materials to be processed – in addition to metals this also includes various different plastics and carbon fibre composites – and significantly greater precision, which also makes microprocessing possible. This means that, compared to the old company, the new company is also accessible to other industries, fields and applications, with Wedel wanting to target both laser manufacturers and users from the semiconductor industry, manufacturers of electronic and solar modules and also the automobile industry.
One of the future products of Photonic Tools will be a laser beam guidance system for ultrashort pulse lasers which will bring the laser light to the workpiece without losing any of its excellent properties. Due to the high energies, special wave guides with the appropriate coupling and decoupling elements have to be used or developed. The second product area is modular laser processing heads in which optical components such as lenses and mirrors shape and guide the laser beam as needed for the application in question. According to Wedel, from a technological point of view this is a completely different calibre to the high-performance lasers which have been used to date.
"However, the development of the technology is only one aspect which will lead to success," emphasises Wedel. "The organisational framework conditions are at least as important." First of all, the aim is to set up a medium sized, owner-managed company selling products which are tailored exactly to customer specifications. Within this company, Wedel is concentrating on technology, sales and marketing and Lummer is responsible for the finances and the other organisational areas of the company. With the diverse combination of laser technology, applied optics, engineering, precision engineering, electronics, control engineering and laser application, Photonic Tools wants to become an attractive employer. They have very consciously chosen Adlershof as a location. Here, Wedel and Lummer hope they will be able to achieve fruitful collaboration with the various research facilities and companies who are also actively working in the laser industry. Initial contacts have been made and the first employees found. "With a powerful team," Wedel is convinced, "we can rise to the technical challenges in just a few months."
by Uta Deffke