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PHOTONICS IN FOCUS: THE UK
INTERVIEW JOHN LINCOLN
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‘I think people’s understanding of the value of the UK’s photonics industry has increased substantially. It has also increased at Westminster’
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The map on the Photonics Leadership Group’s website clearly shows the UK’s photonics centres
Is there a reason for that? Partly because, in the UK, the photonics market is distributed among a wide number of companies and across a large number of locations. This helps access and retain staff. The employment issues here are not nearly as bad as they are in southern Germany and Bavaria, and not nearly as bad as they are in Silicon Valley. There are some sectors and disciplines that are slightly less attractive to everyone across the board, but, overall, I would say the UK photonics sector is doing better at recruitment than locations such as California and Germany, which is good news.
How do you think the wider public understands the UK photonics market and its value? I think people’s understanding of the value of the UK photonics industry has increased substantially. It has also increased within our government and ministries at Westminster, and that is illustrated nicely by the Photonics Leadership Group being flagged as a body that should be involved in projects such as the UK Semiconductor Infrastructure Strategy. People think photonics is one of the
strongest niche high-value sectors to be associated with. The sector is adding value. You’re seeing the same shift of understanding around quantum where, increasingly, people are saying we need
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to do quantum and then realising they need photons to do this. And it’s the same with communications, where there is a realisation that all of that ‘awkward optical fibre stuff’ is also optics!
Where do you think the UK is in the strongest position? Historically we have always been good at defence photonics, and we remain very good at defence photonics. Companies such as Leonardo and Thales lead the way. High-precision optics – whether it’s for telescopes, machine vision or long-distance imaging systems – is something the UK has always been very good at. The UK is also a leader in high-performance lasers, with companies moving more and more production to the UK to make use of our expertise.
And the UK’s weaknesses? Well, the UK is not always so good at integrating our lasers into machine tools. Often, the lasers that are made here are then shipped off to others to put in machine tools. Increasingly, I think we are getting better at some of the integrated photonics that pops up from the semiconductor space, but much is still being shipped abroad, to be packaged up and put into systems. We’re good at the bottom of the food chain here in the UK and not so good – except in the defence sector – at catching the value right at the top of the food chain.
So, how would you define the priorities for the UK to do even better? The UK is a strong supporter of innovators working on integrated photonics and novel materials – and the challenges of integrating those materials together. People are beginning to understand that this is becoming standard business. The government also seems to have really got behind this as a project priority, highlighting its importance within the recent semiconductor strategy.
Is there more the government could be doing? There is always more that governments and legislators could be doing. It was great for photonics to be recognised within the national innovation strategy in the seven technology families of UK strength and opportunity that will drive future innovation in the UK. Two years later, the implications of this recognition are still working their way through the support ecosystem – more rapid progress would be most welcome. We are also seeing that it is essential to support enabling technology alongside challenge-led innovation. The timescales for challenge-led programmes are too short and risks too high to simultaneously support innovation in the enabling components – do one thing at a time. But, without support to bring new solutions in the underpinning photonics to market, the UK risks increasing its dependency on component imports, reducing resilience and misses the opportunity to build sustainable barriers to entry and capture the greater value at the systems level.
What is the PLG saying to the government? We have long argued that you need to ring-fence part of the money that you’re assigning to challenge-led programmes to support innovation in the enabling photonics components. If you want to focus
October 2023 Electro Optics 11
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