The post PowerPhotonic Inc. signs lease for its first manufacturing facility in the US appeared first on Tricapital Angel Investors - Scotland.

PowerPhotonic Inc. signs lease for its first manufacturing facility in the US

04 Apr 2022
From Ford Burkhart in Tucson
Defense-oriented optics company PowerPhotonic , based in Dalgety Bay, UK, is building a design and manufacturing site in the Arizona desert. In the past month, the firm has created PowerPhotonic Inc., in the heartland of U.S. defense sites that stretch across a swath from California to Texas. And it has recruited Mark McElhinney, with his significant resume of optics industry leadership, to be CEO of the new entity. As part of its infrastructure “future proofing,” the 14,000 square foot facility, in Sahuarita, Arizona, about 20 miles south of Tucson and 40 miles north of the Mexico border, will open with a cleanroom “much larger than our immediate need,” McElhinney said. The company sees a need to step up its local support for defense programs, he added. Being based in Arizona, he said, “makes it easy to interact with the main players in the directed energy market, many of whom are based in California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and right here in Arizona.”
Directed energy focus
Along with a main focus on directed energy projects, the new site’s markets will include original equipment manufacturers making high performance laser systems for laser processing, biomedical systems, telecoms, laser projection display, and big science. So what will PowerPhotonic Inc. actually do in Arizona’s desert? In short, McElhinney said, it will apply new methods to wafer-scale optics. That work, in two stages, is much like what silicon foundries do making wafers. Starting from a flat piece of silica glass, the first step involves removing material with control of location and depth, “without any constraints of symmetry (traditional optics manufacturing relies almost exclusively on rotationally symmetric parts).”
Thus, he said, it makes the final surface shape a “very accurate representation of the design.” The second stage precisely smooths the machined surface to a high grade optical finish. The company will make, for example, an array of collimating lenses matched to an array of beams from fiber lasers or diode lasers. The optics can change the shape of a laser beam, from round to square, or even to a hexagonal shape or a ring. In Arizona, the company plans to grow its staffing soon to about 20, and in a few years expects to see 40 staff at the new site. It will expand U.S. sales locations beyond current offices in Virginia that focus on DoD needs. McElhinney was president of Lasertel, and earlier was a founder of Spectracom. He was a device engineer at Motorola Semiconductors before moving to Pirelli in Milan, where he helped establish DWDM amplifier and pump laser manufacturing. He has a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Glasgow. PowerPhotonic was a spinoff in 2004 from the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. US plans: Q & A with Mark McIlhenny
optics.org What are the capabilities of your custom, free-form micro-optics products? What will these products do for the customer? Mark McElhinney “We have a lot more flexibility in our ability to design and manufacture optics than other manufacturers who are generally restricted to rotational symmetry optics, even if the radial profile is aspheric or even free form. “This means that we can tailor an individual lens to a specific measure beam. We can, for example, manufacture optics that compensate for any positional or pointing inaccuracies in semiconductor laser arrays, enabling highly collimated outputs with uniform pointing. “We can do the same thing for the output of fiber laser arrays, with the addition of phase front correction and optical tiling to increase brightness. “This is especially useful in coherent beam combination systems for directed energy applications. Our technology also lets us control the shape of the overlapping outputs on a grating beam combiner to maximize the efficiency of the spectral combination process. “Another good example of our capability is one of our latest products, a Light Tunnel Generator that is used to create a ring-shaped spot that is maintained over such a long distance that it creates a light tunnel. “Ring shaped spots are desirable because they produce more efficient, controllable and uniform results in some laser cutting and welding applications.”
optics.org How will the new PowerPhotonic Inc. site fit in with the company’s larger development route? McIlhenny “Our development strategy in the USA is to leverage the PowerPhotonic core technology into market opportunities in the USA by providing custom optics and integrated assemblies, developed specifically for our customer base in the USA. “We plan to develop integrated assemblies that incorporate one or more of our optics in a form factor that will make it easy for our customers to drop into their systems. “We also intend to continue to work on the power handling ability of our lenses by developing and qualifying antireflection coatings that are compatible with the toughest directed energy applications.”

PowerPhotonic expands from Scotland with new site in Arizona Desert

PowerPhotonic, a Scottish designer and manufacturer of wafer scale optics for advanced lasers and optical systems, is making a push across the Atlantic as the company expands into North America.

PowerPhotonic expands – finds first US manufacturing site

Deputy Business Editor
Monday 16 February 2015
ARCHANGEL Investors has underlined its appetite for backing ambitious Scottish technology businesses by participating in providing more than £3.3 million of new funding for three companies. ARCHANGEL Investors has underlined its appetite for backing ambitious Scottish technology businesses by participating in providing more than £3.3 million of new funding for three companies. Custom byline text: 
Greig Cameron
The money is being used to support expansion and new jobs at PowerPhotonic, Bloxx and Administrate. The angel syndicate said around 60 of its members had participated in the latest funding round for the firms, which were already part of its portfolio. Loading article content
It co-invested in the deals alongside the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise. Micro optic lens and laser performance enhancement firm PowerPhotonic, based in Dalgety Bay, Fife, was the biggest recipient as it got more than £2m to beef up its sales and marketing activities while also extending manufacturing capabilities. The company, formed in 2004 and which uses technology from Heriot Watt University Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, intends to use some of the cash for product development and said it will be recruiting new staff. Roy McBride, chief executive, said: "We've already proved that we can produce the highest quality optics for laser applications in a number of sectors here in Europe, in the US and in Asia Pacific. "This new investment in the business will accelerate our growth plans, allowing us to take on additional staff to expand our product development, manufacturing and sales activities. "
Meanwhile software company Bloxx, which has its main base in Livingston, West Lothian, got £800,000 which it plans to use revamping its sales operations at home and overseas. The company, which specialises in filtering software for email and websites, has an estimated seven million people using its products across Europe and the United States. It said growing demand for real-time filtering of content, to make sure inappropriate and malicious internet and email material is not accessed, has led to a need to make improvements to the way it sells. Bloxx chief executive Charles Sweeney said: "There are 100 new websites launched every minute across the world and our real time web filtering lets schools, colleges and businesses protect themselves and their people from the less savoury content that they may otherwise be exposed to. "This investment from Archangels allows us to take our sales operation in the UK and USA to the next level. "
Finally Edinburgh based online training software provider Administrate raised £577,000 which it will use on product development along with sales and marketing. John Peebles, chief executive of Administrate, said: "We were delighted to reach break-even last year and as we grew we identified key areas where investment could help us accelerate our growth. "Appointments in sales, marketing, product development and customer service will directly translate to helping our clients save time and deliver better education. "With customers on six continents, we're proud to be located and creating jobs in Scotland, and couldn't be where we are today without our team or our investors. "
John Waddell, the chief executive of Archangels, said: "Each of these businesses is world class in its own field and they are all excellent examples of the types of Scottish enterprises that Archangels is uniquely positioned to support. "They simply couldn't have developed to the stage that they have today without Archangels and we're proud of what we have achieved together with all three businesses. "
Kerry Sharp, head of the Scottish Investment Bank, added: "All three of these businesses are great examples of forward thinking, innovative, Scottish companies that are actively competing at an international level. "
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Archangels backs Bloxx, PowerPhotonic and Administrate with new funding

Deputy Business Editor
Monday 16 February 2015
ARCHANGEL Investors has underlined its appetite for backing ambitious Scottish technology businesses by participating in providing more than £3.3 million of new funding for three companies. ARCHANGEL Investors has underlined its appetite for backing ambitious Scottish technology businesses by participating in providing more than £3.3 million of new funding for three companies. Custom byline text: 
Greig Cameron
The money is being used to support expansion and new jobs at PowerPhotonic, Bloxx and Administrate. The angel syndicate said around 60 of its members had participated in the latest funding round for the firms, which were already part of its portfolio. Loading article content
It co-invested in the deals alongside the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise. Micro optic lens and laser performance enhancement firm PowerPhotonic, based in Dalgety Bay, Fife, was the biggest recipient as it got more than £2m to beef up its sales and marketing activities while also extending manufacturing capabilities. The company, formed in 2004 and which uses technology from Heriot Watt University Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, intends to use some of the cash for product development and said it will be recruiting new staff. Roy McBride, chief executive, said: "We've already proved that we can produce the highest quality optics for laser applications in a number of sectors here in Europe, in the US and in Asia Pacific. "This new investment in the business will accelerate our growth plans, allowing us to take on additional staff to expand our product development, manufacturing and sales activities. "
Meanwhile software company Bloxx, which has its main base in Livingston, West Lothian, got £800,000 which it plans to use revamping its sales operations at home and overseas. The company, which specialises in filtering software for email and websites, has an estimated seven million people using its products across Europe and the United States. It said growing demand for real-time filtering of content, to make sure inappropriate and malicious internet and email material is not accessed, has led to a need to make improvements to the way it sells. Bloxx chief executive Charles Sweeney said: "There are 100 new websites launched every minute across the world and our real time web filtering lets schools, colleges and businesses protect themselves and their people from the less savoury content that they may otherwise be exposed to. "This investment from Archangels allows us to take our sales operation in the UK and USA to the next level. "
Finally Edinburgh based online training software provider Administrate raised £577,000 which it will use on product development along with sales and marketing. John Peebles, chief executive of Administrate, said: "We were delighted to reach break-even last year and as we grew we identified key areas where investment could help us accelerate our growth. "Appointments in sales, marketing, product development and customer service will directly translate to helping our clients save time and deliver better education. "With customers on six continents, we're proud to be located and creating jobs in Scotland, and couldn't be where we are today without our team or our investors. "
John Waddell, the chief executive of Archangels, said: "Each of these businesses is world class in its own field and they are all excellent examples of the types of Scottish enterprises that Archangels is uniquely positioned to support. "They simply couldn't have developed to the stage that they have today without Archangels and we're proud of what we have achieved together with all three businesses. "
Kerry Sharp, head of the Scottish Investment Bank, added: "All three of these businesses are great examples of forward thinking, innovative, Scottish companies that are actively competing at an international level. "
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Precitec specializes in laser material processing and optical measurement technology. The company offers laser cutting, laser welding, laser cladding, quality control, quality monitoring, pro cutter, light cutter, mini cutter, speed cutter, webmaster, laser welding monitor LWM, in-process depth meter, all-in-light laser, automated distance control system, and additive manufacturing. It is based in Gaggenau, Germany.

Precitec

Dalgety Bay , UK , 2 December 2016 - PowerPhotonic is pleased to announce an exclusive partnership with Precitec to supply beam shaping optics for high-power industrial laser cutting applications .

Home > Company > News > PowerPhotonic Announces Partnership with Precitec.

Kymata

Heriot-Watt University

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PowerPhotonic manufactures a range of standard products suitable for use right across the micro-optics community; for the materials processing, medical systems, and optical communications industries; for big science and the industrial R&D sector; and for defense applications. The company's product development is aimed at ensuring we stay ahead of the competition and remain as the industry's foremost leader in delivering innovation, functionality and performance.

Name	Roy McBride
Work History	Kymata, and Heriot-Watt University
Title	Managing Director
Status	Current

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