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NEWS: LightMachinery Awarded Patent on Fluid Jet Polishing Pump
LightMachinery Inc.has been awarded a patent on several key fluid jet process techniques that have enabled the company to polish materials to new levels of accuracy. US Patent 7455573 describes the novel constant pressure pump developed by the LightMachinery engineering team as well as several of the important process parameters for achieving ultra-high accuracy fluid jet polishing.
Ian Miller, Director of Research and Development at LightMachinery, stated “A reliable fluid jet system needs to pump very abrasive fluid at high volumes and constant pressures, this proved to be a significant challenge for our team and we are pleased that an an elegant and long life technique evolved after many design iterations."Fluid jet polishing is now used to polish a wide variety of optical components to surface qualities exceeding Lambda/100 with very low surface roughness. A typical fluid jet polished substrate will have thickness uniformity of 10nm or less across a 2" component.
LightMachinery was established in Ottawa, Canada in 2002 by former members of GSI Lumonics. The company manufactures lasers and precision optical components.
NEWS: LightMachinery Acquires the Lumonics® Excimer Laser Product Lines from GSI Group and Expands Production Facilities, July, 2008
LightMachinery Inc. is pleased to announce that it has concluded an agreement with GSI Group to purchase the Lumonics® brand excimer laser product lines. The acquisition of the excimer products follows LightMachinery’s recent acquisition of the TEA CO2 infrared laser product lines from GSI Group.
The Lumonics excimer product lines are both based on short-pulse, ultra-violet excimer laser technology, originally developed by Lumonics Inc, Ottawa, Canada. The PulseMaster and Ipex Series lasers are typically used for drilling and fine-processing of plastics and other materials, fiber Bragg grating manufacture, pulsed laser deposition and similar applications in advanced manufacturing.
John Hunter, President of LightMachinery, stated “The Lumonics excimer lasers have a well-established reputation for being reliable industrial lasers and we are very excited to acquire this technology. There is a large installed base of these lasers around the world and we expect this will grow significantly as manufacturing applications for high power excimer lasers continue to expand”.
As a result of these product line acquisitions and a rapidly expanding business, LightMachinery is more than doubling its production operations, relocating to an expanded manufacturing and laboratory facility, effective August 1, 2008.
LightMachinery was established in Ottawa, Canada in 2002 by former members of GSI Lumonics. The company manufactures lasers and precision optical components.
NEWS: LightMachinery Acquires the Impact® and LaserMark® Product Lines from GSI Group, March 2008
LightMachinery Inc. is pleased to announce that it has concluded an agreement with GSI Group to purchase the Impact and LaserMark product lines.
Impact and LaserMark product lines are both based on TEA short-pulse CO2 laser technology, originally developed by Lumonics Inc, Ottawa, Canada. Impact Series lasers are primarily used for fine-processing of non-metallic / polymer materials. LaserMark Series lasers are a well-established solution for fast, on-the-fly marking of pharmaceutical and electronic products, consumer packaging.
John Hunter, President of LightMachinery, stated “We are pleased to have concluded this agreement so that we can develop new applications and continue to offer these products and related support to customers around the world.”
LightMachinery was established in Ottawa, Canada in 2002 by former members of GSI Lumonics. The company manufactures lasers, precision optics, and fluid jet polishing equipment.NEWS: LightMachinery ISO9001:2000 Certified, August 2007
LightMachinery Inc., a world leader in the production of optical components and optical fabrication equipment, has achieved ISO9001:2000 certification. The audit was conducted by BSI, a leading global provider of management systems assessment and certification.To achieve certification, companies must have a comprehensive management system that addresses all areas of its operation including; design, development, sales, production, service, support and the monitoring of customer satisfaction. "The goal of achieving ISO9001 certification led to an examination and optimization of every one of our business processes" said Gregg Senechal, Business Manager at LightMachinery. "We evolved from ISO skeptics to ISO enthusiasts, it has become central to how we manage our business."
NEWS: Laser Focus World Magazine, March 2007
Fluid-jet polisher is deterministic
A fluid-jet optical-polishing process developed by LightMachinery (Ottawa, On, Canada) promises a lower cost path to deterministic polishing. - Read the complete article...LightMachinery's fluid jet polishing system uses a fine stream of slurry to accurately remove nanometers of material. Advanced software enables the correction of wavefront errors to achieve surfaces that are within a few nanometers of perfect. The wide variety of materials that can be processed using the fluid jet system is enabling applications that were previously considered impossible or too expensive with conventional technology. Fluid jet polishing is revolutionizing the manufacturing of a wide variety of products in the optics, semiconductor and metal fabrication markets. Meet the new standard in polishing and read more about Fluid Jet Polishing...
NEWS, July 7, 2006 - LightMachinery Inc. adds Fluid Jet Polishing to Nano-Fabrication Lab
Fluid jet polishing equipment developed by LightMachinery is now in production in the Nano-Fabrication Lab along side excimer and CO2 lasers. Fluid jet polishing brings a whole new production technique for optical surfaces on a wide variety of materials under complete computer control. LightMachinery Director of R&D, Ian Miller, notes that "The low cost production of near perfect optical surfaces is a complete change in the optics fabrication paradigm. This technology has been under development for many years but has recently taken a leap forward and is now capable of producing arbitrary optical surfaces on a nanometer scale".NEWS, Feb 23, 2006 - LightMachinery Inc. Completes Facility Expansion
LightMachinery Inc. has now completed the expansion of grinding and polishing facilities in building M-50 on the National Research Council of Canada's Campus. Included in the expansion are; a state of the art polishing room, a new IR coating room and a clean inventory area. Gregg Senechal, Business Manager for LightMachinery, notes that "getting all of our staff under one roof is having a great impact on the efficiency of our operations and will help us meet and exceed our customers' expectations for on time delivery".
NEWS, July 20, 2005 - LightMachinery Inc. Introduces On-line Catalog of High Precision Optics
LightMachinery Inc., best known as a producer of ultra-high quality custom optical components, has introduced an on-line catalog of precision components previously unavailable as "off the shelf" items. The eclectic collection of components will include interferometer grade beam splitter cubes, sold and air spaced etalons as well as a range of piezo tunable etalons. John Hunter, President of LightMachinery, said "We have made the decision to manufacture a small number of precision components in higher volumes so that a wider range of customers will be able to access components that are normally only available as expensive 'one of a kind' optics". The catalog is now on-line as part of LightMachinery industry leading website at www.lightmachinery.com/catalog.html.NEWS, Feb 8, 2005 - LightMachinery Inc. Receives Superior Performance Award from Lockheed Martin and Stanford University.
LightMachinery today received a Superior Performance Award "In Recognition of Outstanding Performance in Support of the HMI Project for the Solar Dynamics Observatory". The award was presented to LightMachinery by Rock Bush of Stanford University and Alan Title and Frank Friedlaender of Lockheed Martin. The award was presented in the LightMachinery Optical Test Lab at the Institute for National Measurement Standards at the National Research Council of Canada.NEWS, Nov 12,2004 - LightMachinery Inc. to Publish Blog about Activities at the Company.
LightMachinery's industry leading website has already broken new ground with on-line optical calculators will now feature a Blog with commentary by LightMachinery staff. The content of the blog will center on the daily activities in the optics shop, laser labs and offices. A fascinating look inside the world of laser and optics.NEWS, March 1,2004 - LightMachinery Inc. to supply Michelson Interferometers to NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
LightMachinery Inc. announces the award of a major contract from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Sunnyvale, California, for the supply of high precision Michelson interferometers to the Helioseismic & Magnetic Imager (HMI) instrument being built by Lockheed Martin under contract from Stanford University.The Helioseismic & Magnetic Imager is one of several instruments that will fly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft that is being designed and built at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and which is scheduled for launch in 2008. It will provide much improved sun-watching capabilities and will enable scientists to better predict solar events and their effect on Earth and near-Earth space.John Hunter, President of LightMachinery, said "We are proud that LightMachinery has been entrusted by Lockheed Martin to supply this mission-critical component and we believe that the award of this contract is a tribute to the experience of the team that we have brought together within LightMachinery since our formation in 2002".NEWS, May 6, 2004 - Revised Website is Easier to Navigate, More Content
LightMachinery's new website includes an updated main menu, our optical calculators and in-depth content on some of our optics specialties; wave plates, etalons, laser optics and michelson interferometers. See the improved site at www.lightmachinery.comNEWS, April 26, 2004 - Automated Waveplate Mapping System Ensures the Highest Quality Waveplates Available
LightMachinery today unveiled the automated waveplate mapping system capable of mapping waveplate retardance over the surface of the waveplate. This new proprietary measurement technology has enabled us to achieve retardance uniformity of +/- 0.5nm over the entire surface of 35mm diameter waveplates. For more information see our waveplate page at www.waveplate.netNEWS, February 2004 -LightMachinery Launches Interactive Optical Calculators for Etalons, Waveplates and Gaussian beams
LightMachinery has made available four optical calculators on the website. These calculators enable optical designers, students and engineers to calculate parameters for etalons, wave plates, gaussian beam propagation and convert optical units for distance and angle. The Excel based spreadsheets function on-line, users simply enter the parameters in the spreadsheet and then press a button. For more information see our website at www.lightmachinery.comLightMachinery Inc. is a supplier of high-precision optical components and laser-based systems to leading aerospace, telecommunications, scientific and industrial manufacturingFor further information, please contact us
