The Belgian "Photonics" cluster was born a few weeks ago under the aegis of the Walloon Government. It was founded by some major actors in the field: Amos, the Liege Space Centre, Euroscan, FN‑Herstal, Kabelwerk Eupen, Lambda-X, Lasea, Rovitech, Technifutur, Thales Alenia Space ETCA and the Laboratory for atomic, molecular and optical physics (PAMO) of the UCL (Université catholique de Louvain). The cluster was created as an initiative of PromOptica, the Belgian Association for the promotion of optics.

Photonics deals with light, in the visible and the invisible spectrum. This includes the production and transmission of light, as well as imaging and image processing.

"Connect & Develop"

The main objectives of the cluster will be:

·        To stimulate knowledge exchange between specialised actors in order to increase economic return.

·        To promote "bottom-up" innovation through networking.

·        To federate the competences coming from industries and Research Centres.

There are, in Belgium, many very active companies specialized in one field of Photonics or another. We can be sure that there is also a sizeable prospective market within industries potentially interested or already convinced of the benefits of this technology.

The cluster's initiatives will be coordinated with other Belgian clusters as well as with foreign "Photonics" clusters so as to create the best opportunities for synergy, encourage creativity, and explore new development paths.

There are numerous specialties within Photonics: optics, laser, industrial vision, measurement, detection… The applications of Photonics are typically transverse. Many activities will benefit from the members' products and services, from food processing to the steel or automotive industry to information technology.

The cluster will promote business and research co-operation between its members, and make their skills known internationally.

The cluster set itself a number of priority areas of activity, among which:

• Material processing
  • Laser welding and cutting of metals, which are standard industrial techniques today.
  • For the last ten years, industry has relied less and less on mechanical printing or engraving, gradually replaced by laser marking or labelling for part traceability through barcodes, serial numbers, and the like. 
  • Laser welding of plastics, surface treatment, micro-machining, and layer ablation are used increasingly in processes with high added value.

• Laser and optical instrumentation

The measurement of distance, speed, thickness, colour, temperature, surface finish or quality resorts to photonics technology. Photonics are an essential element for developing and using micro-technologies.

These applications are found in various industrial sectors, laboratories, aeronautics, defence, civil engineering and the food industry (spectroscopy, chromatography…).

• Medical instrumentation

Optics and photonics have been present for a long time in this field, where one finds instruments for diagnostics or treatment, ocular implants, devices for verifying and sorting optical-grade glasses, sensory stimulators…

• Industrial vision

Shape recognition, fault detection, reading and decoding of markings are photonics-based applications. These optical systems are now commonplace, from production lines to scanning in hypermarkets.

• Research in optics and photonics

Teams from all universities and research centres established in Wallonia have, these past years, developed research programmes with high fundamental and technological content in the fields of optics and lasers. These teams of international repute have close contacts with major optics centres: IO Orsay, INO and COPL in Quebec, CELIA and CPMOH in Bordeaux, FRAUNHOFER in Aachen… Their cluster membership will be obvious, and exchanges with them should create a strong impetus for industrial applications as well as for training.