The executive director of the European Optical Society (EOS), professor Jyrki Saarinen, has joined the Luxexcel Group’s supervisory board. Saarinen will use his experience as an optics scientist and an entrepreneur to support Luxexcel’s fast-growing business in digital additive manufacturing.
As well as the executive director of the EOS, Saarinen is a professor at the University of Eastern Finland and the founder of Heptagon Advanced Micro Optics – currently the market leader in wafer-level fabricated micro optics. He has extensive experience in recognising and establishing a business for innovative technologies.
The Luxexcel Group is the inventor of Printoptical technology, which allows for the 3D printing of functional optical components such as lenses, both for prototype manufacturing as well as series production. The company uses a custom inkjet printer to deposit micro drops of acrylic onto a substrate which is then hardened with UV light. The optical structure, specified in a CAD file, is achieved by jetting, flowing and merging the molten droplets before hardening.
At the moment, the technology is applied mainly in the LED lighting industry to print the optical components within a light fixture.
‘I believe that the unique Luxexcel technology provides the optics and photonics industries virtually unlimited opportunities,’ said Saarinen. ‘The process allows designers to think out of the box whilst developing new optical components and functions for our future generation of products. I am proud to join the highly skilled team at Luxexcel and am looking forward to support them with my experience.’
Luxexcel’s president and founder Richard van de Vrie added: ‘The addition of Professor Jyrki Saarinen states that the digitisation of optics manufacturing has started. I am convinced that the expertise and experience of such a recognised scientist will become instrumental in the fast, ongoing development of Luxexcel.’
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