The global photonics industry met at LASER World of PHOTONICS in Munich from 24th to 27th June 2025, with a new record number of visitors confirming LASER’s status as the world’s leading trade fair of the photonics industry. World of QUANTUM met for the third time, and the concurrent World of Photonics Congress brought together top international researchers for six days, including two Nobel Prize winners. For the second time, automatica, the leading trade fair for robotics and automation, took place in parallel at Messe Munich.
LASER World of Photonics 2025 welcomed nearly 1,400 exhibitors (up 178 from 2023) from 41 countries, and approximately 44,000 trade fair visitors (40,000 in 2023) from 74 countries and regions. The share of international visitors was 57%. After Germany, the top 10 exhibiting and visiting countries were, in this order: UK, France, Italy, China, Switzerland, USA, Japan, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands.
Photo: Messe München
Photo: Messe München
Photonics Scotland was in attendance to represent our members and raise awareness of the Scottish photonics cluster. Our member organisations Alter Technology, Clyde HSI, Coherent, Fraunhofer UK, Helia Photonics, Singular Photonics, Skylark, Photon Force and PowerPhotonic were exhibiting at the trade fair, with many others attending the congress or ‘walking the show’.
Having the opportunity to meet with our international counterparts, raise awareness of the capabilities of the Scottish photonics sector and discuss shared topics of interest is always a key element of international trade events. Photonics Scotland took part in the Photonics100 event where there was a panel discussion on Integrated Photonics and the presentation of the inaugural Photonics Frontiers Award. We also attended the EPIC breakfast, where there was representation from across the globe, and we heard a presentation from SPIE regarding recent events in the USA.
The new Women in Photonics group, spearheaded in part by Shahida Imani, vice-chair of the Photonics Scotland Steering Board, held their first networking event which was well attended with great international representation, and the Future Photonics Leadership Group held a Young Talent Careers Session to discuss the challenges and rewards of a career in the photonics sector.
Other highlights included attending networking events organised by Business Finland, OPTICA, OptoNet e.V., Photonics Austria, Photonics21, PhotonicsNL, and SPIE where we were able to expand our network and raise awareness of Scotland’s photonics capabilities and fly the flag for the Scottish photonics cluster.
LASER World of PHOTONICS was, as always, a great reminder about the critical technology that photonics is in the world today.
The next LASER World of PHOTONICS and World of QUANTUM will take place together with automatica at the Messe München exhibition centre from 22nd – 25th June 2027. The next World of Photonics Congress runs parallelly from 20th – 27th June 2027.