Jenoptik AG has modernized its facilities with new machines and higher staffing levels, saying it aims to prepare for the continuing high demand for semiconductor lasers.

A new stepper is used to manufacture laser diodes to increase production capacity, yield rate, and quality, while reducing delivery times. Facet coating equipment has also been implemented. Investment in the low double-digit million euro range is planned in all three production areas of facet coating, wafer processing, and epitaxy.

“Not only will we become faster, but we also guarantee the production and further development of state-of-the-art semiconductor lasers with very high-power output,” says Jürgen Sebastian, site manager at Jenoptik’s Adlershof facility in Berlin.

The semiconductor bars manufactured by Jenoptik are increasingly used in the health care and life sciences sectors, for advanced manufacturing technologies, and for cutting-edge sensor systems, which advance trends in the automotive industry such as autonomous driving.

The expansion of production and cleanrooms also leads to new employees. The company aims to add production engineers, microtechnologists, laboratory technicians, and precision mechanics, as well as medical and chemical-technical assistants. Overall, the facility’s staff will increase to 75 by the end of the year. When the production facility opened in 2006, it had just 18 employees. With the Ferdinand Braun Institute, Leibniz Institute for High-Frequency Technology (FBH) located in Adlershof, Jenoptik has launched a training initiative supporting dual training. This means that FBH trainees gain practical industrial experience at Jenoptik during their education.

Jenoptik is a technology group that focuses on the areas of optics and life sciences; mobility; and defense and civil systems.