OVER Fifty years have passed since the laser was invented. Now they can be found everywhere, as industrial laser applications have spreads from the auto industry to CD players. In a joint project, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Economics are helping to trace the laser’s economic development – and in the process, they are challenging some common assumptions about how new technologies come to be established.
The name of the project is LASSSIE: “Lasers: A Spatial-Sectoral System of Innovation and its Evolution.” It explores the evolution of the laser innovation system whilst also including the regional dimensions involved in the development of laser manufacture and as seen from a scientific, economic and political perspective. In addition to the Bergakademie Freiberg, the project, financed by the Volkswagen Foundation also includes researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Economics and Friedrich Schiller University both in Jena.
At the forefront of the project is the issue of the systemic nature of laser development. “In the 1950s, the naive belief still persisted that technology and enterprise developed along the lines laid down by the relevant institutions: first comes basic research, then applied research, and finally, the technology is taken over by industry,” explains Jena-based regional economist Michael Fritsch, who is also doing entrepreneurship research. “Today, however, we recognize the existence of what are called innovation systems – actors who are dependent on one another and interact with one another, but are spatially separated and spread across the fields of enterprise, politics and research.”
Between 1961 and 2005, there were 3,369 laser-related patent applications and the research analysed the stories and innovation behind these patents to explore questions such as: were patents registered more frequently by inventors working together in the same team combination? In comparison, how often were patents registered by inventors working alone? The answers to these questions provide insight into the system character of the industry.
An important part of the LASSSIE project lies in gathering data,” says Guido Bünstorf. Company registers, patent applications, publication statistics, dissertations, trade fair catalogues and trade journals are all grist to the mill. And then there are also interviews with the principal participants in industry and research.
The research concludes that the heady of laser development and application may have already reached a peak. “We haven’t been able to discern any further increase in the number of publications in recent years,” reports Bünstorf. The initial phase of technical development and the associated increase in research activity seems to have already reached an end. “With the whole world describing the 21st century as the age of optical technology, that’s not what we would have expected.”
Industrial Laser Solutions 