Years
Electro Optics
Dr John Lincoln, director at Harlin, chief executive of UK Photonics Leadership Group, and outreach manager at The Future Photonics Hub, reports on the UK market and the challenges the region faces
For over 350 years the UK has excelled in harnessing light into innovations with global impact. Going back to Sir Issac Newton’s reflecting telescope of 1668, UK photonics has combined scientific discovery with practical engineering to produce breakthrough innovations with broad impact. As illustrated with the invention of the optical amplifier and high-power fibre laser and most recently innovations in quantum technology, UK photonics has an enduring ability to refresh itself to stay at the cutting edge of innovation. As one photonics technology becomes commoditised and taken for granted, the UK is already working on the next application of light. The UK’s innovative capacity in light
is exemplified in the multiple world- leading academic institutes and photonics researchers based in universities throughout the country. Harnessing this innovation has led the growth of a £12.9 billion industry employing over 65,000 people in more than 1500 firms, with a productivity three times the national average. Many of these companies export almost all of their output, an unrivalled export fraction in British industry, illustrating the very high international regard for UK photonics. Photonics is simultaneously an age old enabling technology, invisibly integrated into modern life from fibre optic networks to the lasers welding our cars, and emerging technology that will change our future lives. Accumulating cross industry input, the Photonics Leadership Group has identified the future grand challenges presenting the biggest opportunities for photonics in the future and where the need for further innovation is greatest: Delivering Internet 5.0, where data
delivery is ubiquitous, invisible and instantaneous to all people and all factories, no matter where they are or what they are doing. I5.0 will require the seamless integration of optical, electrical and RF technologies and will break the link between digital demand and economic, energy and security costs that if unresolved, will constrain the digital economy.
20 Electro Optics December 2017/January 2018 Affordable, accurate location
information, overcoming security threats and enabling autonomous vehicles with instantaneous awareness of rapidly changing local surroundings. Light has long been used to capture information remotely, the challenge is to make detection adaptable, flexible, infallible and compatible with all situations. For many applications, such as in autonomous cars, this must be done with components compatible with aesthetic integration and high volume, low-cost manufacture. Enabling UK manufacture of the car of the future, with advanced digital manufacturing using light to process, monitor and control cutting, joining, marking and assembly for lighter weight,
“Perhaps the greatest challenge for UK photonics is to support increased domestic use of photonics, to improve the productivity of the wider UK industry”
safer, more efficient vehicles. Already deployed at key processing steps, wide deployment of digital laser manufacturing and laser metrology and extension to new materials will be critical for automotive production and raising productivity across UK manufacturing. Making home healthcare as effective as hospital care by 2030, by providing simple pre-clinical diagnoses and health screening tools for use in the home and pharmacy, decreasing the load on primary and hospital care. As light penetrates the skin, it can be deployed in non-sterile user- friendly methods to significantly improve healthcare productivity enabling health professionals to focus on patients most in need of their time. These photonics challenges are closely aligned to the four grand challenges identified in the UK industry Strategy: Building a Britain for the future (https://
www.gov.uk/government/publications/ industrial-strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for- the-future). • Putting the UK at the forefront of the
artificial intelligence and data revolution,
• Being a world leader in shaping the future of mobility,
• Maximising the advantages from the global shift to clean growth,
• Harnessing the power of innovation to help meet the needs of an ageing society.
Backed by the industry strategy, these four challenges will attract a significant proportion of the £725 million committed to new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) programmes. UK photonics innovation is likely to appear in a great many of the proposed solutions. The critical role of photonics is, however,
not recognised in the industry strategy, and UK photonics remains focused on how important challenges where photonics has a major role can be integrated into future ISCF waves. Global challenges such as the energy consumption in data centres, solutions which are vital for growth in AI to be compatible with clean growth, are seen as prime candidates. The industry strategy also marks the announcement of the first four sector deals with the life science, artificial intelligence, automotive and construction industries, with more in negotiation with creative, nuclear and industrial digitisation. Photonics is important to many of these, but the role of supporting enabling hardware development and integration needs to be more directly incorporated in such sector deals, especially in industrial digitisation. Through the PLG, the UK photonics industry has already drafted proposals for a photonics sector deal and in parallel with evaluating how UK photonics can participate in deals already announced, PLG will discuss with government if it is possible or desirable to develop a sector deal with a clear impact on photonics productivity, output, exports and investment. As an industry UK photonics excels in many of these areas already, exporting heavily and attracting significant foreign direct investment. Which means perhaps the greatest challenge for UK photonics is to support increased domestic use of photonics, to improve the productivity of the wider UK industry. EO
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
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