November 4, 2008-- There is little doubt that laser materials processing--the primary emphasis of the 27th International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) 2009 (presented by the Laser Institute of America; LIA, Orlando, FL and held October 20-23 in Temecula, CA)--may suffer in the current economy.
In fact, the audience didn't seem surprised when it was announced in the Tuesday, October 21st afternoon Business Forum & Panel Discussion at ICALEO that Shaochen Chen, program director for Nanomanufacturing at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), could not give the opening presentation on "Research Funding Programs at NSF" as recent budget cuts at NSF prevented him from attending the ICALEO event.
And yet, conversations with major and minor players in the laser industry both in the technical conferences and during the ICALEO Vendor Program on Wednesday evening yielded a surprisingly upbeat attitude. Many were bullish that the prospects for lasers as replacements for more conventional (and less energy efficient) technologies were fundamentally strong. Xiaoyan Zeng from Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China presented "Research and Development of Lasers and Laser Materials Processing Systems in the 'Optical Valley' of China" at the Business Forum and stated in the panel review that China viewed lasers as "conventional technology" in the < 25 W category.
There is no shortage of technological innovation in laser processing as revealed by the Plenary Sessions and the three main conference tracks at ICALEO on Laser Materials Processing, Laser Microprocessing, and Nanomanufacturing. In fact, it was difficult to decide which of the five parallel tracks to attend each day. Conference tracks included Direct Metal Deposition, Micromachining, Laser Micro Drilling & Dicing, Unique & Plastic Processing, Welding – High Brightness, Laser-induced Ablation & Breakdown, Ultrafast Laser Processing I & II, Surface Modification I & II, Bio-medical Applications, Nanostructured Materials and Device Fabrication, Nanostructure Integration and Probing, Laser Microprocessing of Semiconductors, and others on Welding, Cutting, and Cladding.
It will be interesting to see how the economy impacts lasers in the materials processing industry in 2009. But it is clear that the record number of 30 participating countries at ICALEO 2008 indicates that the laser has "arrived" as a useful industry tool--if not a conventional technology.
--Gail Overton
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