New Labs and Cleanrooms strengthen Cutting-edge Research in the Future Topics of Hightech Agenda Deutschland:
In mid-March 2026, the Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Optik und Feinmechanik (IOF) in Jena officially inaugurated its newest research building. The ceremony was attended by representatives from politics, business, and industry, as well as Dorothee Bär, Federal Minister for Research, Technology and Space, and Mario Voigt, Minister-President of Thuringia. Construction of the new building began in 2019. The total project costs amounted to around 30 million euros, shared equally between the federal government and the state.
Covering an area of more than 2,000 m², the new building provides additional laboratories, cleanrooms, and offices. “The new laboratories offer a wide range of opportunities for the development and manufacture of high-precision optical and photonic systems. This creates ideal conditions for cutting-edge research and its transfer into applications in the fields of optics, photonics, quantum technology, and photonic systems,” said Holger Hanselka, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. In the future, research on key topics of the Hightech Agenda Deutschland, adopted in July 2025, will be advanced here, thereby further strengthening Germany as a technology and innovation hub. Key technologies identified within the agenda include Quantum Technologies, Biotechnology, and Microelectronics.
Highlights of the new building are a new electron beam lithography facility and an optical ground station for Quantum Communication. Electron beam lithography enables the fabrication of particularly fine structures in the nanometer range on optical components. This makes it possible to develop and manufacture high-performance chips for microelectronics, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing, as well as high-precision measurement instruments for Earth observation and space travel. The optical ground station installed on the roof of the research building enables optical communication with satellites. It thus represents an important infrastructure for Quantum Communication Research, which develops new methods for secure communication even in the age of Quantum Computers. The new ground station will allow insights gained from research projects such as the QuNET initiative, funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR), to be extended from their previous focus on ground-based Quantum Networks to satellite-based Quantum Communication. This will lay the foundation for a global Quantum Network while also ensuring excellent research conditions at the institute in the future, explains Institute Director Andreas Tünnermann. Further information on the new research building can be found here.
Source reference: https://www.iof.fraunhofer.de/en/pressrelease/2026/Inauguration-new-research-building.html