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From major universities to mid-size technology companies to startups, ASE Optics' team of optical engineers have been a critical part of the product development cycle.

University of Rochester, NY
Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Managers at LLE, home of the world's most powerful UV-laser, needed a new ultra-fast laser system to produce a petawatt pulse in order to continue their program experiments. They relied on ASE Optics for help with many optical systems, from design to implementation. During our 10 year partnership with this federally funded energetics laboratory, we have contributed to:

LLE values our high-performance, cost-effective solutions in optical and opto-mechanical engineering. We find this diversity of challenges stimulating, and are happy to be involved with such an important center of American fusion energy research.

 

Rapid Micro Biosystems

Rapid Micro Biosystems provides test equipment for faster detection of microbial contamination in the manufacture of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and personal care products. They turned to ASE Optics to help design a next-generation fluorescence imaging system that would reduce sample size and speed the testing of pharmaceuticals. The "optics were the secret sauce," states Mark Severns, Director of Rapid Micro Biosystems. ASE's unique approach to illumination was key to achieving performance: blue light that caused the cells to fluoresce allows the sensor to identify fluorescence from just 100 cells vs. the nearly 5 million cells needed for the human eye to see colonies. ASE improved the efficiency of collected fluorescence by utilizing an array of LEDs for uniform light. The optical system design reduces complexity and expense by eliminating the beamsplitter and reducing requirements of the filters.

ASE's approach reduced sample size and cut test time in one-half, helping Rapid Micro Biosystems build a product that reduced risk for pharmaceutical companies, sped product shipment, and resulted in safer products for consumers.

 

Geospatial Systems Inc. (GSI)

Geospatial Systems Inc. is a Rochester, New York, developer of multispectral imaging systems for commercial and military applications. When GSI won a contract to develop a Multi-Object Spectrometer (MOS), ASE Optics was called on to design the complex optical and opto-mechanical systems.

The MOS can simultaneously analyze the visible spectra of hundreds of astronomical objects. Our engineers incorporated a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) — an optical MEMS array of tilting mirrors — to direct the individual pixels of an astronomical image into a transmission grating spectrometer.

The innovative use of reflective aspheric optics allowed the spectrometer to maintain high resolution across the image field, providing new and powerful capabilities to astronomical researchers.

 

Lumetrics Inc.

High-Tech Rochester is a non-profit economic development organization. When they discovered an innovative non-contact metrology approach "orphaned" at Eastman Kodak Company, they brought in ASE Optics to help investigate potential product development opportunities. We reviewed the technology and conducted marketing research.

In 2003, ASE Optics founded Lumetrics Inc. with the initial goal of licensing and commercializing this revolutionary Kodak technology.  Using custom components and subsystems designed by ASE Optics, they created the Lumetrics OptiGauge™. This renowned metrology tool can measure the physical thickness of multilayer materials from 12 microns to 8 millimeters, to a precision of 100 nanometers. It's used in laboratories and production lines alike for optical thickness measurement and gauging.

We continue to provide strategic support to Lumetrics for its evolving line of innovative thickness measurement products and systems.

 

Dairy Quality Inc.

Dairy Quality set out to design a mobile instrument that could be used in the field to analyze biological fluids. ASE Optics partnered with them to design the optics for this fluorescent microscope that couples with the iPhone camera and measures cell counts per mL at a 1 micron resolution.

ASE Optics helped Dairy Quality move from concept to working production samples in under 5 months, in time for unveiling at a major trade conference.

Smartphone compatible device design will open up new markets for Dairy Quality and other technology companies. ASE Optics' optical engineering team can design the lens and opto-mechanical systems needed to bring such devices to market.