Proceedings of the 20th IMEKO TC2 Symposium on Photonics in Measurement

Following the sharp downturn in the global economy in recent years, the year 2010 was marked by a recovery period and slight growth. Manufacturing companies have now stabilized in many areas and record steadily rising orders. Even in the fields of optical technologies companies achieved a significant growth over the previous year. According to realize sustained growth these companies should have the ability to think permanently about new innovations and their implementation in production. Especially the robust realization of increasingly efficient manufacturing processes lead to the mandatory use of effective and reliable measurement devices. According to their high accuracy combined with extremely short measurement cycles, optical measurement techniques offer enormous potential for competitive companies. The Technical Committee 2 ‘Photonics’ (TC2) of the IMEKO operates since its foundation in the research and development of components and systems for photonic measurements. This year we will have our 20th ‘Symposium on Photonics in Measurement’. After successful events in Hungary, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, USA and China we will now have our first TC2-Symposium in Austria. At this point I would like to thank my colleague Prof. Zagar from the Johannes Kepler University of Linz who kindly agreed to host the symposium and all members of the National Organizing Committee for organizing. Furthermore, I would like to thank all TC2 members and colleagues who have participated enthusiastically in the contents of our 20th TC2 event. From my point of view the future innovation of industry is benefiting in particular from a well-developed research environment. Universities and research institutions can support the development of new leading edge technologies in joint activities and are also able to educate much-needed skilled workers for high-tech companies. Therefore the research and innovation policy will continue to play a special role for a common and successful collaboration of science and industry. Prof. Tilo Pfeifer