In association with


ANALYSIS: THE PHOTONICS LEADERS


It’s a family affair – the 40-year rise of Laseroptik


Laseroptik sits at the heart of the town of Garbsen, just outside Hanover in Germany. It offers an inspiring blend of social and entrepreneurial spirit and has made quite an impact on the global photonics market too. Mark Elliott talks to President Wolfgang Ebert, both about the business he has run since 2008 and what’s next


Your father famously founded the company from the basement of your family home and it is still very much a family business. Did you always believe your professional destiny was going to be linked to the company? There were times when I thought I would take an offer I had from the German army to stay there. I also had the opportunity to go into business consulting but, in the end, I came to the conclusion that the family business was the best choice if I wanted to follow my own opinions and convictions.


Can you recall your first recollections of what your father was doing back in that basement? When the company moved into our family home, everything changed. I got very close to all of the technology involved. Many things changed [in that time], but I was never discouraged. The company took over almost every room [in the house], apart from the bathroom!


Your father’s research in the 1970s gave him the inspiration for the business. What was


www.electrooptics.com


“We have no sales people travelling around. Our best marketing is our reputation”


that journey like for him? What do you think motivated him? The scientists at the University of Hannover [where Wolfgang’s father, Dr Johannes Ebert, worked] understood that you need a certain selection of components to build a laser, but the challenge is to get the right coatings on that glass substrate. And, of course, to really use light as a tool. They knew if they wanted to make quick advances, they must make their own coatings and laser optics. And that became my father’s task. He modified a lot of things, and helped many scientists throughout Europe and the world to enable laser technology. That pioneering spirit is in our genes.


The business is 40 years old this year – a lot has happened in that journey from 1984 to today. What have been the


Wolfgang Ebert took over running the firm from his father in 2008


key chapters or highlights on that journey? The first 10 years was spent getting out of the basement. Then, next to the family home, we created the next level of professional production with our first dedicated company, building with clean rooms and modern coating technology, and also more metrology to understand the performance of our coatings and optics. Today, we have the two new buildings where we enlarged our portfolio of coating methods from two to six. That has helped many researchers and laser manufacturers across the whole world to build the latest lasers.


Are the critical philosophies that were true when the company was formed still true of Laseroptik today? We maintain those original beliefs and philosophies. One of them is that a company should be more than just something to create profit. And I think it’s not just a belief – it also makes sense, business-wise, when your people stick with


the company and when they are happy to go to work every day. For me, as the president, it really does make more sense to run a company like that.


There are examples of that at Laseroptik, including the firm’s kindergarten and the famous stork nest [see the video at electrooptics.com]. One of the things that’s less obvious when you’re walking around is the way you heat the building and your focus on renewable energy. We power the whole company here at Garbsen with 100% green energy, but we’ll also reuse a lot of the energy. So, for example, the waste heat from the coating processes is taken in order to heat the buildings in the wintertime.


In terms of the portfolio of products that you have here, was there a critical pivot point where the company had to grow in a different direction? One was when we decided to start engineering and build parts of our machines


May 2024 Electro Optics


› 19


Laseroptik


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36