On September 16, 2024, Physik Instrumente (PI), the market and technology leader for high-precision positioning technology and piezo applications, inaugurated the new building of its Eschbach site in the Breisgau Business Park in southwestern Germany. Investments of approximately 20 million euros support the expansion of the global development and production center and strengthen the economic development of the region with state-of-the-art jobs.

On July 17, 2024, Physik Instrumente (PI) inaugurated the PI Technology Hub in Karlsruhe, Germany. On an area of 500 sqm, the hub offers space for ten employees of the central department “Global Research” as well as ten additional places for more extensive project work and for PhD students and working students. It is equipped with special laboratories to allow for hands-on experiments. The strategic proximity to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and other research institutions will promote an intensive exchange and close cooperation.

At the Faculty of Science of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, the PI Innovation Award, which is endowed with 2,500 euros, was presented for the first time. The award recognizes scientific research in the form of doctoral theses as the driving force behind innovative solutions and products. The work of award winner Dr. Teresa Wagner deals with new diagnostics for the early detection of therapy resistance in cancer.

At the International Aerospace Exhibition ILA Berlin in June, Physik Instrumente (PI) presented itself as a partner in the LuFo VI-1: ADMAS (Advanced Machining and Sealing) research project. Under the leadership of Airbus, PI has contributed its more than thirty years of expertise in hexapod development to the research project. The project, which was publicly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and supervised by the DLR Project Management Agency for Aviation Research, was successfully completed at the end of April 2024.

PI Ceramic introduces the new product category “Piezoceramic Composites” based on the development of a new manufacturing technology. In this technology, piezoelectric ceramics are embedded in filling polymers. For this purpose, materials with high stiffness as well as with highly elastic polymer matrices can be used. The basic functionalities of piezoceramics, namely ultrasonic conversion and actuator technology, can thus be combined with the properties of the filling polymers. This allows a much better adaptation to application-specific conditions and requirements such as complex shapes as well as specifically adjustable acoustic, mechanical, and electrical properties.

Traditionally, key manufacturing technologies for semiconductor production have come from Europe. To ensure that this does not change in the future, the European Union is funding the 14ACMOS project to develop the next technology node. It is expected that this node will enable the production of chip structures with dimensions down to 14 angstroms. Physik Instrumente (PI) participates in the research program by developing high-precision positioning systems with accuracies of less than one millionth of a millimeter.

Piezo technology is particularly suitable for fulfilling specific requirements of active microfluidics in wide-ranging medical technology applications. A new white paper from PI Ceramic describes the special characteristics of piezo actuators and their potential use cases in microfluidics.

To further its leadership in enabling the rapid manufacturing scaling of Photonics, Physik Instrumente (PI) introduces at this year’s Photonics West PILightning^TM, the new first light search method with integrated AI-based real-time executive function. As the newest functionality in PI’s award-winning photonics process automation suite, this fully autonomous and virtually instantaneous process (patent applied for) eliminates the need for time-consuming searches or manual intervention. This significantly drives down costs for test and assembly in all industrial photonics alignment applications, from wafer probing to final packaging. The PILightning^TM algorithm is immediately available for PI’s ultra-clean air bearing stages, Nanocube and fast steering mirror mechanisms and leverages the power of ACS controls.

Due to the increasingly critical process steps in the quality assurance, as well as in the assembly and packaging of SiPh chips, PI is constantly expanding its range of mechanical alignment systems to support customers worldwide in increasing productivity and throughput in SiPh production. At Photonics West 2024, PI will present new solutions with air-bearing stages and a new entry-level system in addition to established systems.