The Carl Zeiss brand is well known in a variety of global consumer sectors, and yet it is also one of the PV industry’s leading lights. Here, Jürgen Gobel tells PES about the company, its future goals and its broad spectrum of applications within the sector.Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the company and what you offer the photovoltaic industry?
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Jürgen Gobel: The company was founded as a workshop for precision mechanics and optics in the German city of Jena in 1846. Today, the Carl Zeiss Group is a global leader in the optical and opto–electronic industries and has approximately 13,000 employees. We have offices in more than 30 countries, are represented in more than 100 countries and have production centers in Europe, North America, Central America and Asia. The company is headquartered in Oberkochen, Germany.
We are market leaders in the majority of our fields and offer an extraordinary spectrum of leading-edge solutions and products.
Carl Zeiss MicroImaging GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of Carl Zeiss AG.
The Optical Sensor Systems and the Materials Microscopy business units are part of the Industrial Division which, along with the BioScience Division, belongs to Carl Zeiss MicroImaging. During fiscal year 2007/08 the Microscopy Group at Carl Zeiss generated revenues of approximately EUR 340 million with a global workforce of about 1,700.
