Press Releases

Manufacturing and maintaining die-casting tools professionally is crucial to the foundry industry: As one of the most expensive assets, these tools play a decisive role in determining quality, efficiency, and costeffectiveness. Easily costing hundreds of thousands of euros, complex molds and inserts must be able to function over many years without interruption. They must also withstand extreme stress: In die casting, for example, the mold materials are exposed to temperatures of up to 700 °C, while the tools to mechanical forces of several hundred kilonewtons. Added to this are abrasive stresses on the tool surface and chemical attack by alloying elements in the casting materials. Thermal stresses and material fatigue lead to cracking, erosion, and abrasive wear. Even when the molds are designed optimally and manufactured carefully, their wear is an unavoidable factor that eventually means tools have to be replaced. If this occurs unexpectedly, it results in significant downstream costs.

In the HiPEQ project, a consortium of industry and research partners has de-veloped new laser-based approaches to enable miniaturized, robust beam sources for quantum technology. Among others, the consortium also used lasers to grow novel optical isolator crystals. Funded with €6.22 million by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR), the project achieved significant progress from November 2021 to July 2025. Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen played a key role by co-developing the laser proces-ses needed.

For three decades now, the AKL – International Laser Technology Congress has been established as a key platform for exchange within the laser community. From April 22–24, 544 experts from 21 countries, around 90 speakers, and 57 exhibiting companies and institutions flocked to AKL’26 in Aachen. There, during the Gerd Herziger Session, a panel of high-caliber experts reviewed the developments of the past 30 years and looked ahead to the future of increasingly ubiquitous laser technology.

With its planar, highly integrated XY scanner for industrial use (PIXIE), an upcoming spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen aims to set new performance standards. The 2D laser deflection system is faster and much more compact than today's galvanometer scanners. This makes it ideal for parallelized material processing with multi-scanner systems and high-power lasers, whose beam is divided into many independently scanned beams for this purpose. The multidisciplinary, diverse quartet of founders behind PIXIE has its sights set on further application markets.

Laser technology is breaking into new dimensions: Ultrashort-pulse and continuous-wave lasers with average powers in the multi-kilowatt (kW) range promise to boost efficiency for material processing and pave the way for entirely new fields of applications. At the AKL’26 - International Laser Technology Congress, taking place from April 22 to 24, 2026, in Aachen, several sessions will focus on multi-kW lasers.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT will present its laser-based process chain for glass optics manufacturing at Optatec, May 5–7, 2026, in Frankfurt am Main, Hall 3, Booth 219. From optical design through shaping, laser polishing, and laser shape correction to alignment and packaging, Fraunhofer ILT offers a fully integrated, laser-based manufacturing process that is unique in this form worldwide. The process chain covers shaping, laser polishing, and laser shape correction, followed by alignment and packaging. Fraunhofer ILT offers a fully integrated, laser-based manufacturing process that is unique in this form worldwide.

Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, together with tinkerbrain – Institut für Bildungsinitiativen GmbH, has developed multimedia and multidisciplinary learning and teaching materials as part of Science Year 2025, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR). It teaches schoolchildren about the scientific and technical background of fusion as an energy source of the future and its potential to generate a secure climate-neutral energy supply. Three schools in Aachen have already worked with this subject in regular lessons and in week-long project seminars. The project partners are now making it available free of charge to interested schools and extracurricular learning centers as the web-based "fusionsLAB.de."

Fraunhofer ILT and Cailabs are entering a development partnership to advance wire-based laser material deposition for demanding industrial applications. Cailabs contributes a new, particularly compact process head based on its MPLC beam-shaping technology. The head weighs less than five kilograms and allows the use of laser powers above twelve kilowatts. This combination of compact size, high available laser power and precise beam shaping has not been available in this form before. Based on this, Fraunhofer ILT develops and qualifies suitable process parameters for different component geometries and use cases.

Solid-state batteries promise greater safety, higher energy density, and new degrees of freedom in cell design. Yet the path from laboratory cell to industrial production is challenging. Laser processes can overcome key hurdles and enable a breakthrough.

State Secretary Matthias Hauer presents funding approval for the InnoWaerm project at Fraunhofer ILT. The project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) with approximately 1.5 million euros, develops high-temperature-resistant lightweight reactors made from titanium aluminide that can be manufactured using additive manufacturing. They are intended to generate hydrogen directly on board aircraft, agricultural machinery, or heavy-duty vehicles.