Via the Rochester Business Journal
For years, ultrafast mode-locked lasers have been the gold standard for high-precision applications like molecular analysis, advanced biological imaging, and microscopic material processing. These specialized instruments act like ultra-high-speed strobe lights, emitting light in hyper-fast, microscopic pulses. This unique pulsing allows industries to scan, cut, or analyze delicate materials such as pharmaceutical compounds or microelectronics with extreme precision and zero heat damage. Yet, for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) trying to integrate these powerful optical tools into commercial products, adoption has been nearly impossible because the hardware is bulky, expensive, and notoriously difficult to scale.
“Our team had worked at a number of biotech startups, and we found that trying to integrate a mode-locked laser was almost unachievable,” explains Faisal R Ahmad, PhD, co-founder and CEO of AB Photonics. “We talked to many laser suppliers, and they always highlighted that the combination of skilled workers and complicated supply chains that are needed to scale this class of lasers is very challenging. Based on this reality and our own experience, we recognized this as a problem that needed to be solved.”
The urgency to fix this bottleneck intensified during the global pandemic, when supply chain disruptions brought entire manufacturing lines to a sudden halt.
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