Finalists announced for the German Future Prize--all photonics technologies

Munich, Germany--The office of the Federal President of Germany announced the teams nominated for the final round of the Deutscher Zukunfspreis 2013--the German Future Prize--which is awarded for innovation in science and technology and is worth 250,000 euros. The R&D projects by all three teams involve photonics technologies.

Team 1 developed an ultrashort pulse laser for extremely precise and reliable materials processing. Team members are: Dr. rer. nat. Jens König from Robert Bosch (Schwieberdingen), Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Stefan Nolte from Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Fraunhofer IOF (Jena), and Dr. sc. nat. Dirk Sutter from TRUMPF Laser (Schramberg).

Team 2 has developed a pulsed UV laser system to produce large, thin layers of polysilicon to be used in high-resolution mobile displays for smartphones and tablets. Team members are Dipl.-Ing. Rainer Pätzel, Dr. rer. nat. Ralph Delmdahl, and Dr.-Ing. Kai Schmidt from Coherent LaserSystems (Göttingen).

Team 3 has developed an energy-saving solid-state chemistry for white light-emitting LEDs. Team members are: Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Wolfgang Schnick from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich) and Dr. rer. nat. Peter J. Schmidt from Philips Technologie (Aachen).

In the competitive nomination process, executives of German scientific and business institutions are entitled to propose up to three projects to the German President's Office. In a series of meetings, the jury categorizes the submissions and decides on the three or four innovations that will make it to the final round based on innovative research and marketablility. The Prize will be awarded on December 4, by Federal President Joachim Gauck at a gala event.