Speaking at the inaugural Photonics100 Meet Up event at Manchester’s Midland Hotel on October 30, industry-leading P100 alumni got together for an engaging and thought-provoking forum on the current state of photonics, as well as its trajectory for the future.
Hosted by Europa Science CEO Warren Clark, publisher of Electro Optics, the P100 MeetUp, sponsored by Chroma Technology, featured a distinguished panel of invited P100 guests including John Lincoln, Chief Executive, Photonics Leadership Group; Georg Draude, General Manager, Chroma Technology and Chris Dorman, Executive Vice President, Lasers Segment, at Coherent, who was sitting in for Coherent’s Chief Technology Officer Julie Eng.
The panelists covered some of the key current and emerging photonics technology trends, while also sharing insights and advice on both the challenges threatening the sector, and the opportunities that are there to be taken.
Key trends in photonics
One of the recurring themes focused on by the panelists, was that of integration. John Lincoln spoke about the importance of getting integration right. “There’s a lot of discussion in the semiconductor industry about integration, about stacking bits of silicon on top of bits of silicon. That’s fine,” said Lincoln, but “our industry is going to be much more concerned with stacking different materials on top of different materials.”
One of the outcomes of advancing integration outlined by Lincoln, was how it can bring a level of functionality that hasn’t been seen before at scale, “the reason that’s interesting is because [of] how it upsets supply chains,” he said. “We’re used to supply chains where we sell components to people [who] integrate them into bigger systems,” which “go to end users who put them in a machine tool or make a mobile phone with them,” for example.
Wafer-based heterogeneous integration “cuts the middle man out,” said Lincoln. “You still have machine tool integrators, but suddenly they’re building things on-chip at a scale we’ve never seen before, and the need to buy components may disappear in the traditional form.”
That step change to the way business is conducted will be “incredibly disruptive,” said Lincoln. “Therefore, the people who work this [out the fastest] will be the leaders of the future. Those who laggard that change may see themselves not existing.”
Miniaturisation and maximisation
Another outcome of putting components together is in product miniaturisation, but also maximisation too, as identified by Georg Draude: “Coming from the coating business, for us, pattern coating will be a challenge, but also an opportunity. Right now, we put a coating on pieces of glass for individual filters, but in the future I see the need to structure silicon wafers with a coating on top, at a very small scale.”
“On the other hand,” said Draude, “I also see a trend towards bigger footprints in biomedical research and diagnostics. Everyone’s talking about miniaturisation, but if you think about detector technology that’s moving towards bigger fields of view and bigger megapixel sizes, these require bigger fields of view for other objects.”
Longer term photonics trends
Giving a longer-term perspective, Chris Dorman identified three key areas of photonics that are ripe for future growth, including fusion, quantum and biophotonics. Although still in its infancy, we’re starting to see academic publications on fusion. “As startups globally come to fruition and start to run their first test runs, there’s significant scope for a new form of clean energy.” Talking about supporting the expansion of AI, “we can see that data centres are [getting] quite energy hungry,” said Dorman, “so I think fusion is an interesting photonics application we’ll see emerge over the next 15 - 20 years.”
“There’s significant scope for a new form of clean energy”
Talking about the trend for quantum, Dorman said: “I think it’s intimately interwoven with photonics. “You’ve probably heard a thousand times this week, and in many other conferences,” about the opportunity of quantum. “We use the phrase ‘quantum’ all the time, actually quantum and photonics are essentially the same.”
Lastly, on the topic of biophotonics – a topic close to Dorman’s heart as it was where he said he started in laser technology, “in multi-photo microscopy with 3D imaging of brains, and understanding how neurodegenerative diseases progress – huge advances [are being made] in that area of science that are exciting to see. On the same time scales that we’ll see quantum computing and fusion, we’ll also see significant advances in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.”
Emerging photonics technologies
Talking more specifically about the more recent and emerging trends for new technologies, Georg Draude first paid credit to the forced innovation advances of the past few years: “Thinking about the pandemic we went through, and the technology it triggered for the biomedical diagnostic market,” he said, “it was great to have PCR technology on-hand.”
While on the medical applications, and coming back to his earlier point about the miniaturisation of technology, Draude also pointed out the advantage photonics brings in simplifying and democratising diagnostics. “The beneficial outcome of this shrinking of components is that [patients] can do diagnostics on their own. You have wearables on your wrist and you can have a lot of diagnostic [equipment] in doctors’ offices, that would have needed bigger clinical areas in the past.”
“One thing that’s not understood about photonics is how much it underpins current technology”
While identifying the next generation photonics technologies to make an impact on the future, the panel were also keen to point out the existence of highly advanced photonics technologies already present in the consumer electronics landscape. “It’s very exciting talking about fusion, quantum and potential cures for Alzheimer’s etc., in the future,” said Chris Dorman, “but one thing that’s not really understood about photonics is how much it underpins our current technology.”
Advanced photonics in phones and screens
“If you look at a modern mobile phone,” said Dorman, it essentially crams what would have taken up the size of a room at one point, “down into a very small form factor. And that miniaturisation has led to the huge raft of photonics technologies used in the manufacturing of modern mobile phones.”
One of the process steps to manufacture mobile phones, for example, is to cut around the OLED screen. As OLED screens are just layers of plastic, they don’t react that well to heating, meaning "ultrafast lasers that deliver all their energy in picoseconds or femtoseconds” are needed to effectively “disappear the material. Ripping the molecules apart,” as Dorman put it.
“If you want to see a miraculous manufacturing process, look at how modern mobile phones are made”
“If you want to [see] a miraculous manufacturing process, just go and look at how modern mobile phones are manufactured. There are at least 50 laser processing steps. Think of all the lithography and inspection that has to happen on the chips, these are photonics technologies.”
“Although my first answer might have given the impression that across the long term, Photonics is going to become an important industry, if you look at most complex manufacturing processes, photonics is already dominating, it’s just hidden in the background.”
Machine learning transformative for smaller-scale production
“Lasers are ubiquitous in very large-scale manufacturing processes like making mobile phones,” agreed John Lincoln. When product units are in the tens of millions, hours of application engineering go into fine tuning the process, but how do we make that more generally applicable for small volumes?
“This is where machine learning and AI become really important,” said Lincoln. If low volume means you can’t afford those levels of application engineering and bespoke development, machine learning could mean you don’t need to. “You let the machine work it out.”
“People are working out what the power bill will be, and it’s not cheap”
“It’s fascinating,” using machine learning to optimise the photonics processes we currently take for granted because experts are optimising them by hand. In the previously discussed area of coatings, “if the machine can learn to do coating without you having to get the coating designer to do it, the coating designer may not be happy, but then you have shorter volume runs at the same efficiency as the huge volume stuff,” and “that gets you more applications, more solutions and more customised solutions that [can] really make a difference to the world.”
Before finishing on a high note, however, Lincoln made sure to point out the downside of machine learning as well. “It’s expensive. We shouldn’t forget how expensive machine learning is in terms of its energy use. People are [currently] working out what the power bill [will be] and it’s not cheap. Ultimately, this will be one of the problems with the adoption of AI and machine learning.”
Normalisation of supply chain problems
One challenge that’s been affecting manufacturers both large and small over the past few years has been the supply chain. And although Lincoln agreed that supply chain issues have mostly passed, the industry is still suffering from related issues.
“If you ask [manufacturers] ‘Can you get the components you need to make your products?’ The answer is ‘Yes’. There are no longer the shortages we once saw,” he said. “But if you ask the question: ‘Have some components got longer lead times than they used to?’ The answer is ‘yes’ again.”
“Supply chain disruption has become supply chain normalisation”
“Nobody quite understands why something you used to be able to get in six weeks now takes 12, but it’s become normalised. Supply chain disruption has now become supply chain normalisation in some cases. Partly it’s to do with a shortage of people – there aren’t as many people running things and there aren’t as many shifts. Partly it’s to do with the economics of rationalising the product mix on production lines – so it might take 12 weeks because the production slot isn’t for another 11 weeks.” But it’s not because there’s a shortage.
“I think what is happening is that [there] is a lot more focus on where stuff comes from,” said Lincoln. There’s interrogation right down the supply chain, and that’s not just about suppliers. It’s about suppliers’ suppliers and suppliers’ suppliers’ suppliers. You need visibility of where components and even materials come from, all the way down.
“You might know where you get your coating material from,” said Lincoln, for example, “but where does the guy who makes your coating material get the chemicals from, used to purify that coating material? That’s quite hard [to do] when you [need to] drill down through supply chains just to get hold of the information.”
“You could be asked what the national pedigree is of your entire supply chain at any point. It’s a data management nightmare”
“We’ve not had to worry about it before, but people do care about it now, and they expect that information. The bigger you are, the more suppliers you have, and that grows exponentially down the supply chain. You could be asked to say exactly what the national pedigree is of your entire supply chain at any point. It’s a data management nightmare.”
While agreeing that buyers have more to consider when it comes to how and from where components and materials are sourced and the need to identify secondary sources, Georg Draude also suggested that, perhaps, lessons from the supply chain crisis have not been learned. “Customers were buying supplies in high volumes back in 2022 and 2023, and now they’re sat on the shelf,” he said. “Now we’re going back to the old styles with Just-in-Time and LEAN manufacturing."
Global threats and opportunities
As photonics technologies increase in maturity and become involved across product groups, industries and sectors, those same lessons and experiments are happening across the globe, too. Discussing what, and in what capacity, this global reach for photonics and photonics manufacturing means for European business interests, the panel were (cautiously) optimistic.
“If you look outside of photonics,” for example, said Georg Draude, “you just have to look at automotive. I’m from Germany – a big car country – and everyone was laughing at Chinese cars 10 years ago. Now who’s the biggest competition? EV vehicles from China.”
In consumer electronics as well, someone might look at the part the UK played in developing OLED technology, then look at the huge facilities in China and South Korea with kilometre-long lines of tools used to manufacture OLED screens, and ask why the entire industry has moved there. But “what you’ll find,” said Chris Dorman, is “a significant quantity of those tools are from Europe.”
“These exceptionally innovative photonics technology products made in Asia support many high-skilled jobs in Europe”
“These exceptionally innovative photonics technology products” being made in Asia, he said, support many high-skilled jobs in Europe. “A significant amount of the tools and the technology inside those fabs is developed in Europe, so it’s always more complicated than it might initially look.”
Agreeing that China represents more opportunity than threat, John Lincoln suggested the size of the market is not a problem, but “you’ve got to think about what you’re selling and the difference it’s making,” he said, “the same way you would to a customer in Germany or anywhere else. Make sure you offer a differentiated product that competes and provides added value.”
Taking advantage of local conditions across the continent
The rise of photonics across Asia doesn’t start and finish in just one country, of course, “India is a big, growing market,” added Georg Draude, “but it’s not easy to understand. Many western companies have made many mistakes there, but if you [can learn] a little bit about the country and understand business there, there’s huge potential.”
“India is fascinating,” agreed Lincoln. Although well-known as a ‘logistical nightmare’ – for good reason, he admits: “It’s really, really hard to move goods around.” But “on the other hand, they have an awful lot of talent.” While the European market is suffering from talent shortages, India is “not a bad place to look.” If you’re looking to move intellectual value around, without moving a lot of hardware, you “don’t care about the bad infrastructure.”
Questions from the experts: reversing the discussion
One of the key aspects of the P100 meet-up, is that it’s an opportunity for leading photonics dignitaries – having been recognised by Electro Optics – to not only lead the discussion, but also to add to it. So when Miles Padgett, researcher and professor of Optics at the University of Glasgow and acclaimed P100 honouree, raised concerns about the possibility of reverse engineering in the photonics industry, the panelists were able to respond.
Downplaying the threat, Chris Dorman argued that continuous innovation, driven by significant R&D investment, would help photonics innovators to stay ahead of the threat of reverse engineering. Because the challenge presented by productisation – transforming technology concepts and even prototypes into reliable and scalable products for industrial use – means that reverse engineering is only step one in a very long process.
“20 years ago, femtosecond lasers weren’t industrial laser systems, they were experiments”
Using ultrafast lasers as an example, “the barriers to entry are quite low,” said Dorman. “If you have $1,000 and two PhDs, you know how to make an ultrafast laser.” But the difference between the ultrafast laser industry 20 years ago and now is that “in those days, femtosecond lasers weren’t industrial laser systems at all, they were experiments.”
“Of course the pulse energy is important, the wave energy is important and the power level is important. But what’s more important for huge fabs [to be able to] churn out hundreds of thousands of screens or tens of thousands of battery welds every day, is reliability. It’s not as glamorous for physicists, but turning ultrafast technology into a product took 10 years.”
“When you’ve got the pulses and the configuration of the laser, you’re [only] 10% of the way through the journey.” The difficult part – which not as many people can do – is “turning that innovative laser technology into something that’s bulletproof and will last for many years.”
Learning from failure
Turning the question on its head, meanwhile, John Lincoln posited that reverse engineering can also be used as a force for good, “to take products that fail out in the field and reverse engineer them to understand where the failure is,” using it as a tool to educate our engineers to better understand problems.
“You can watch something fail, but that doesn’t tell you why it’s failed”
Because “you can watch something fail,” said Lincoln. “But that doesn’t tell you why it’s failed. The key bit is understanding why and how you change it. There are a lot of taxi drivers who’ll tell you exactly how long you can drive a Mercedes for until it breaks, but that doesn’t mean they know how to fix the Mercedes.”
Knowledge in that example, “just means you know where the limit is. That’s great for someone running a big fab to know exactly how long they can run something until it breaks, but that has nothing to do with making it last longer.”
Light at the end of the tunnel: photonic optimism
Reflecting on what’s bringing hope for the future of the photonics industry, despite its global challenges, our panelists took a step back and considered the journey photonics has made to get to this point, before optimistically predicting its continued spread across both technological innovations and wider consumer use.
When the laser was invented, nearly 65 years ago, there was no industry at all. Now it’s many billions of dollars and counting. “Photonics technology is replacing mechanical technology, and many other kinds of technologies, providing new applications, so I’m dramatically optimistic,” said Chris Dorman.
“Whether its in the automotive sector with the car or car batteries, or if it’s in a phone with the battery, screen or processor, all of it is underpinned by photonics,” he said. “Now there’s exciting activity in AI, quantum, fusion and medical research, these will all continue to drive the adoption of photonics. Without going into detail about what’s going to happen next week, there’s a huge tailwind for the industry.”
“Electronics is ubiquitous. Photonics is about to become as ubiquitous, if not more so”
“We’re going to continue to grow strongly,” agreed John Lincoln. “I’m fortunate, I’ve seen the numbers on how big the industry has grown in the last year and yes, it’s got good tailwinds.” Manufacturing with photonics represents one of the interesting areas of growth, but “we’re going to see an explosion in photonic widgets, as opposed to just photonics processes,” as well, he said. “As we get point-of-care devices and AI processing with photonics, those will drive a step change in the scale of industry applications.”
“How many of the devices inside a mobile phone is photonics?” for example. “The screen is a photonics device, the camera is a photonics device, the part that measures the distance to your ear [for it to] turn off the screen, is a photonics device.” [Where] electronics is ubiquitous, photonics is about to become as ubiquitous, if not more so. And that’s really exciting, because those aren’t linear growths, they’re exponential.”
The P100 MeetUp panel discussion was recorded and is available to listen to as an on-demand webinar.
