Review 2019

World of Photonics Congress 2019 in retrospect: A program of superlatives ensures new record numbers of participants.

In 2019, the World of Photonics Congress once again set new records: A total of 6,717 participants attended the congress and the practice-oriented application panel program at the LASER World of PHOTONICS, the world's leading trade fair for components, systems and applications of optical technologies that took place at the same time.

Under the umbrella of the World of Photonics Congress, seven conferences took place this time with a total of 4,675 participants. That is 15 percent more participants than in 2017. 3,635 lectures and posters were presented in total, which represents an increase of 21 percent. Thus, the World of Photonics Congress once again underlined its role as the most important and largest congress for photonics research in Europe.

In 12 plenary sessions and award presentations, the leading scientists from all over the world provided information on the current status of their research projects: Prof. Karsten Danzmann could be won for the opening plenary. The director at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) and head of the division Laser Interferometry and Gravitational Wave Astronomy gave a lecture on "Listening to the universe with gravitational waves". The lecture "A Passion for Extreme Light" by Prof. Gérard Mourou, which was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, also attracted a large audience. At both plenaries, the large auditorium in the ICM - Internationales Congress Center München with almost 1,500 seats was quickly overcrowded. Prof. Mourou's lecture was then transmitted to the foyer.

Other renowned plenary speakers included Prof. Michal Lipson (Silicon Photonics) and Prof. Anton Zeilinger (Photonic Entanglement). Prof. Sir Peter Knight received the Herbert-Walther-Award 2019 at the World of Photonics Congress. The LiM - Lasers in Manufacturing Conference used its Opening Plenary to honor the scientific work of Prof. Reinhart Poprawe, who spoke about "Industry 4.0 and is Role in Laser Technology".

Seven conferences were held under the umbrella of the World of Photonics Congress in 2019:

• CLEO®/Europe – EQEC—Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics/Europe and the European Quantum Electronics Conference
• Digital Optical Technologies
• ECBO—European Conferences on Biomedical Optics
• EOS Conferences on Optical Technologies
• Imaging and Applied Optics
• LiM—Lasers in Manufacturing
• Optical Metrology

For the first time, OSA organized the conference Imaging and Applied Optics, which celebrated a successful premiere with around 340 participants. The conference dealt with the latest developments in imaging and applied optical sciences, covering the forefront advances in imaging and applied optics as well as the application of these technologies to important industrial, military and medical challenges.