Aachen, Germany – The Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010, initiated by the associations Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute (ELI) and funded with 10,000 Euros prize money, was conferred on Dr. rer. nat. Keming Du, managing director of EdgeWave GmbH, Würselen, Germany, on May 5 in Aachen, Germany's town hall.
Dr. Du won with his innovative proposal, "Q-switched INNOSLAB lasers for high quality micro-processing." In the historical ambience of the "Coronation Hall," over 250 guests of the 500 participants of the International Laser Technology CongressAKL'10 attended the awarding ceremony. Two other awards, for 2nd and 3rd place, were also conferred.
All three winner's applications are presented in detail on www.innovation-award-laser.org.
Prof. Reinhart Poprawe, VP of Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V. and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, welcomed to Aachen´s town hall the audience and especially the teams of the three finalists and the 10 members of the international jury. Dr. Paul Hilton, from The Welding Institute TWI Cambridge and speaker of the jury members, pointed out the dedicated work of all three finalists and the outstanding innovations of the project teams in the field of laser technology.
Dr. Du has been furthermore awarded the title of "AKL Fellow" and "ELI Fellow". The trophy for the prize winner and the certificates for Dr. Du and the other project management team members, Dr. Claus-Rüdiger Haas, Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Schell, and Dr. Dailjun Li, were handed over by Dipl.-Ing. Ulrich Berners, president of the Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V. and Dr. Stefan Kaierle, president of the European Laser Institute.
INNOSLAB lasers represent a new laser class that is suitable for a large variety of applications in different sectors of industry and research. INNOSLAB lasers enable a variety of challenging applications such as micro-processing of glass, scribing, edge deletion, high throughput thin film structuring, and pumping of dye lasers.
The international jury consisted of 10 members recruited from the industrial and research communities. The jury’s decision was based principally on the following criteria: proven commercial benefit; innovative quality of the resulting laser beam source, laser manufacturing process or laser system; scientific / technological quality of the underlying research; creative approach to technology demonstrated by the designated individual or project group; and importance of the contribution of the applicant’s work to the overall innovative process.
The 2nd place prize of the Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010 was conferred on Dipl.-Ing. Jürgen Dupré and his team of Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Dahlewitz and Oberursel, Germany. The innovation consists of a new repair technique for aero-engine components using laser metal deposition. The members of the project management team are:
Dipl.-Ing. Jürgen Dupré, Repair Engineering Specialist, IPT Lead
Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Dahlewitz
Certified Engineer Elke Weiss, Repair Engineer
Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Oberursel
Dipl.-Ing. Gerhard Backes, Project Leader Repair Processes
Lehrstuhl für Lasertechnik LLT, RWTH Aachen University
Dr. Andres Gasser, Group Leader Laser Metal Deposition
Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT, Aachen
The 3rd place was conferred on Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Lembeck and his team of the MEYER WERFT Laserzentrum GmbH, Papenburg, Germany. The innovation consists of laser hybrid welding of thick sheet metals with disk lasers in the shipbuilding industry. The members of the project management team are:
Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Lembeck, Factory manager
Dipl.-Ing. Guido Pethan, Project leader invests
Dipl.-Ing Frank Boekhoff, Test manager, R&D
MEYER WERFT Laserzentrum GmbH, Papenburg
The Innovation Award Laser Technology is a European research prize awarded at 2-yearly intervals by Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute. The award can be conferred on an individual researcher or on an entire project group whose exceptional skills and dedicated work have led to an outstanding innovation in the field of laser technology. The scientific and technological projects in question must center on the use of laser light in materials processing and the methods of producing such light, and must furthermore be of demonstrable commercial value to industry.