Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT

In October 2021, the Asian Symposium on Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (ASLIBS) took place for the second time. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS, is a process for conducting rapid, non-contact multi-elemental analysis of solids, liquids or gases. It has a wide range of applications in research and industry: from recycling, to analyzing molten metals, to generating element maps with microscopic resolution. Fraunhofer ILT can look back on 30 years of experience in developing the LIBS process for industrial applications. 

The ASLIBS focuses on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy in the Asia-Pacific region. Scientists active in the field of LIBS spectroscopy were nominated by an international jury for the LIBS Summit Award and invited to give lectures in October this year in Qingdao, China.

The LIBS Summit Award is the highest honor of the LIBS community worldwide, and this year it was awarded to Prof. Reinhard Noll. Prof. Noll was a research associate at Fraunhofer ILT since its foundation in 1985 and was head of the competence area Measurement Technology and EUV Sources area until he retired in April 2021.

At Fraunhofer ILT, the Materials Analysis working group headed by Dr. Cord Fricke-Begemann deals with inline processes based on LIBS: for example, as a measurement process for recovering metals from waste and scrap heaps and sorting them into mono-fractions. Dr. Fricke-Begemann: “With a scanner that selects measuring points and makes 100 LIBS measurements per second, the materials can be analyzed to produce a two-dimensional representation of the element distribution in record time. Since the spatially resolved analyses have been developed even further, we are now able to detect technology metals in electronic scrap and, thus, recover pure materials, such as valuable tantalum from capacitors, and return them to the materials cycle in an environmentally friendly manner.”

For the future, further R&D work is planned in the competence area Measurement Technology and EUV Sources. It aims to broaden the industrial application of the LIBS process, among other things, in the broad area of recycling.

• More Information on Material Analysis
• Technology focus “Laser Measurement Technology and EUV Technology”

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Dutch research center QuTech unite in the fields of quantum communication and quantum information networks. The partners have now signed a memorandum of understanding and are working closely together on the development of the quantum internet as well as on knowledge transfer.

One goal is to develop a multinational quantum network in the EU. At a later stage, this is to be made available to industry and science in order to develop new products and applications and to exploit the full potential of distributed quantum computing. The partners are also planning to install the first German quantum node of a transnational quantum network at Fraunhofer ILT as stepping stone for an European approach to an entanglement-based quantum internet.

In the run-up to this cooperation, QuTech and the Fraunhofer ILT achieved a major break-thru towards realization of quantum networks – a quantum frequency converter currently setting a world record for low-noise and, in perspective, signal-to-noise performance.

• Learn more in our video on YouTube 
• Press release from December 14, 2021
• Quantum Technologies at Fraunhofer ILT