Schott AG is a German multinational glass company specializing in the manufacture of glass and glass-ceramics. Headquartered in Mainz, Germany, it is owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation. The company's founder and namesake, Otto Schott, is credited with the invention of borosilicate glass. History Founding In 1884, Otto Schott, Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and his son Roderich Zeiss founded the Glastechnische Laboratorium Schott & Genossen (Glass Technical Laboratory Schott & Associates) in Jena, which initially produced optical glasses for microscopes and telescopes. In 1891, the Carl Zeiss Foundation founded two years earlier by Ernst Abbe became a partner in the glass laboratory. Jena glass, an early borosilicate glass, was one of its early manufactured products. The invention of borosilicate glass, resistant to chemicals, heat and temperature change, paved the way for new technical glasses for thermometers, laboratory equipment and gas lamps. The company experienced economic success. The workforce had grown to 1,233 by 1919. Sales had doubled to 28 million marks by 1920. Otto Schott transferred his shares to the Carl Zeiss Foundation in 1919, fully rendering the glass laboratory a foundation company and renaming it Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen (Jena Glassworks Schott & Assoc.). Erich Schott, the founder’s son, took over management of the glass factory in 1927. Split In the midst of Germany’s political division after World War II, the Jena factory was expropriated transformed into a state-owned entity in 1948. The company was divided in half: VEB Jenaer Glaswerk in Jena in East Germany, later integrated into the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena collective, and Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen in Mainz in West Germany. While the state-owned company in Jena developed into one of the most important specialty glass suppliers in Eastern Europe, Erich Schott developed an international group in Mainz with sales offices in Europe, the US and Asia. The company became a specialist glass manufacturer with products including glass components for television tubes, fiber optics for light and image conductors, mirror substrates for giant telescopes, glass-ceramic cooktop panels (serial production from 1973) and glass tubes for parabolic trough power plants. Following the German reunification, the Mainz plant assumed Jena’s company shares. Late 20th Century The company experienced growth in the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Schott Glas, as it became known in 1998, developed into a technology group with 80 companies in 32 countries and global sales of over 3