Global Optical Filters Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Global Optical Filters Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Optical filters are passive devices that allow the transmission of a specific wavelength or set of wavelengths of light. There are two classes of optical filters that have different mechanisms of operation: absorptive filters and dichroic filters.

Absorptive filters have a coating of different organic and inorganic materials that absorb certain wavelengths of light, thus allowing the desired wavelengths to pass through. Since they absorb light energy, the temperature of these filters increases during operation. They are simple filters and can be added to plastics to make less costly filters than their glass-based counterparts. The operation of these filters does not depend on the angle of the incident light but on the properties of the material that makes up the filters. As a result, they are good filters to use when reflected light of the unwanted wavelength can cause noise in optical signal.

Dichroic filters are more complicated in their operation. They consist of a series of optical coatings with precise thicknesses that are designed to reflect unwanted wavelengths and transmit the desired wavelength range. This is achieved by causing the desired wavelengths to interfere constructively on the transmission side of the filter, while other wavelengths interfere constructively on the reflection side of the filter.

Market Overview:

The latest research study on the global Optical Filters market finds that the global Optical Filters market reached a value of USD 1107.47 million in 2022. It’s expected that the market will achieve USD 2236.81 million by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 12.43% during the forecast period.

Affect the normal operation of optical filters industry

The raging COVID-19 has plunged the global economic environment into depression. The influence of COVID-19 on optical filters industry will involve all major links and entities in the industrial chain. The management efficiency of the company declined, commuting was hindered, production plans were hindered, and the company's development strategy and marketing methods were forced to adjust. In addition, during the COVID-19 period, the logistics speed slowed down or even stopped, and the supply of raw materials for optical filters production was tight. The company's production is limited to some extent, and the production of related enterprises in the hardest hit areas is greatly affected. After the epidemic is over, it will also face the financial pressure of rising costs caused by the shortage of raw materials.

Affect product export

COVID-19 epidemic has swept the world, and the inspection standards of imported products by customs of various countries have been significantly improved. At the same time, restrictions on the movement of people have also increased. Restricting people's entry and exit will lead to the sales staff of export enterprises unable to attend foreign exhibitions. There is a risk of decreasing the order quantity of enterprises. In areas with severe epidemic situation, some employees of enterprises can't go to work due to epidemic situation, which may cause product production stagnation or delayed completion. The shortage of personnel leads to the long-term overload of on-the-job personnel at present, which puts great pressure on the safe and stable operation of enterprises.

Technological development

As light sources, digital sensors, and coating chamber technologies continue to improve, optical filters will naturally evolve and continue to advance. Optical filters are critical for some of the most demanding applications in automation, energy, medical imaging, security, and multi-element optical systems.
These advancements require developments on new substrates such as flexible thin film polymers and IR grade materials including silicon and germanium, or with new chemicals and compounds that yield high transmission and high blocking filters in the UV and IR spectrums. Advancements in coating chamber technology have resulted in higher precision filters yielding bandwidths of<1nm with tolerances of<1%, which pushes the limits of top-of-the-line spectrophotometers. With each advancement, tolerances and specifications have been further optimized to better represent a precision substrate with improved surface quality, surface flatness, parallelism, and transmitted wavefront.
New materials, sub-nanometer specifications, deep UV to far IR spectral coverage, and various improved tolerances will continue the advancement of optics and photonics in nearly every consumer and scientific application.

High cost

The whole precision optical instrument manufacturing industry is a technology-leading industry with intensive capital and many modern and contemporary advanced technologies such as optical technology, mechanical technology and electronic technology. Manufacturers need constant technological innovation to support complex operation processes, product processing accuracy and increasing demand of consumers. On the one hand, the manufacturing of optical filters requires a lot of investment in automatic precision production and testing equipment. In particular, coating has a great influence on the performance of optical products, usually requiring dozens of coatings, each of which has a thickness ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of nanometers. Therefore, it needs to be applied to high-precision coating equipment, so the industry will have higher requirements for technology accumulation and capital. On the other hand, the industry's high technical content, process technology and production management level directly affect the product quality and yield, which directly determines the cost advantage of enterprises in the market competition and restricts the increase of production capacity.

Region Overview:

In global comparison, a significant portion of the revenue was generated in North America (40.7% in 2021).

Company Overview:

HOYA Corporation is one of the major players operating in the Optical Filters market, holding a share of 8.69% in 2022.

HOYA Corporation

Hoya is active in the fields of healthcare and information technology providing eyeglasses, medical endoscopes, intraocular lenses, optical lenses as well as key components for semiconductor devices, LCD panels and HDDs.

Umicore Electronic Materials

Umicore Electro-Optic Materials (EOM) is creating material solutions for optical and electronic applications for customers around the world. The hyper-connectivity megatrend is at the center of Umicore Electronic Materials new product and services developments. This megatrend is a combination of ubiquitous communication networks, sensors and artificial intelligence.

Segmentation Overview:

As for product types, the Bandpass Optical Filter segment held the largest market share in 2021.

Coloured Optical Filter

A Coloured Optical Filter is a sheet of transparent material that modifies a light beam by selective absorption of some colours in relation to others.

Bandpass Optical Filter

Bandpass optical filter are optical filters that pass one or more specified wavelength band(s) while blocking others. Bandpass filters are referred to by the wavelength range, also known as the passband, which they are designed to transmit.

Longpass Optical Filter

Longpass filters are optical filters that reflect short wavelengths while transmitting, or passing, long wavelengths.

Shortpass Optical Filter

A shortpass filter is a filter that transmits at shorter wavelengths and rejects longer wavelengths.

Band-stop Optical Filter

Band-stop optical filter is the opposite of a bandpass filter. It is a type of filter that rejects frequencies within the band and transmits frequencies outside of the band. Band-stop optical filter are designed to block or reject a certain wavelength region while allowing the light on either side of the blocking region to pass through. They can be viewed as an inverse of a bandpass filter.

Application Overview:

The market's largest segment by application is the segment Optical Instruments, with a market share of 43.48% in 2021.

Medical Tools

Optical filters use for Point of Care (PoC) instruments, biomedical instrumentation, and medical devices for endoscopy and laparoscopy.

Optical Instruments

An optical instrument (or optic for short) is a device that processes light waves (or photons), either to enhance an image for viewing or to analyze and determine their characteristic properties.

Industrial Equipment

A range of industry equipment uses lasers and optical sensors to shape and control a number of different products. The function and safety of these processes require selective bandpass and attenuation filters.

Key Companies in the global Optical Filters market covered in Chapter 3:

Chroma Technology Corporation
Umicore Electronic Materials
Thorlabs
Thermo Fisher
Omega Optical
Andover Corporation
Edmund Optics
Semrock
Schott
Materion Corporation
Newport Corporation
Daheng New Epoch Technology
Alluxa
II-VI Incorporated
HOYA Corporation
Shanghai Optics

In Chapter 4 and Chapter 14.2, on the basis of types, the Optical Filters market from 2018 to 2029 is primarily split into:

Coloured Optical Filter
Bandpass Optical Filter
Longpass Optical Filter
Shortpass Optical Filter
Band-stop Optical Filter
Others

In Chapter 5 and Chapter 14.3, on the basis of Downstream Industry, the Optical Filters market from 2018 to 2029 covers:

Medical Tools
Optical Instruments
Industrial Equipment
Others

Geographically, the detailed analysis of consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, historic and forecast (2018-2029) of the following regions are covered in Chapter 8 to Chapter 14:

North America (United States, Canada)
Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden)
Asia Pacific (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia)
Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina)
Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa)