2023 is a very special year for the LASER World of PHOTONICS.

LASER 73, the very first edition of today’s leading international trade fair for photonics components, systems and applications, took place exactly 50 years ago. At that time, around 100 exhibitors came to Munich. They were pioneers of a future industry that is only just emerging. This was a mere 13 years after US researchers had been able to create the first ever laser beam.

Nevertheless, Gerd vom Hoevel, Managing Director of Messe München at the time, was so impressed by the potential of this innovative technology that he launched the world’s first trade fair for lasers. Today we know just how right he was with this visionary idea. Photonics, which was in its infancy back then, has delivered on its promise to the future. It is a key technology for digitalization and the communicative networking of our modern world; it is revolutionizing medical research and practice; it enables precise insights into the worlds of nano and micro, as well as into the depths of our universe; and, in industrial manufacturing, it is constantly paving the way to even more efficiency, flexibility, precision, brilliance and sustainability. In short: The innovative potential of light as a tool that Gerd vom Hoevel recognized at the start of the 70s will last for at least another 50 years. Especially since a photonics-based future market is forming again with quantum technology. And because a good story is worth repeating, Messe München has already created an ideal platform for this key technology of the future with the World of QUANTUM.

But here, for once, we don’t want to take a visionary look ahead: Instead, we invite you to take a little journey with us back through time, to the year 1973.