Thorlabs acquires Norland's fiber-optic product portfolio

Nov. 1, 2018
Norland develops UV curing adhesives and interferometric test equipment for the fiber-optic industry.

Thorlabs (Newton, NJ) entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement to acquire the Fiber Optic Portfolio of Norland Products (Cranbury, NJ) and has made the GL16 All-in-One Interferometer and CC6000 Portable Interferometer available for purchase through its website. Norland develops UV curing adhesives and interferometric test equipment for the fiber-optic industry and distributes a high-purity fish gelatin and fish collagen used in the food and pharmaceutical industries.

The Norland products will be incorporated into Thorlabs' existing Vytran business unit, a 20,000 square foot facility located in Morganville, NJ. The Vytran team designs and manufactures an array of products geared towards high-volume optical fiber processing and assembly, including fusion splicers, cleavers, recoaters, and proof testers. Their technologies are used in a broad range of precision applications ranging from telecommunications and medical components to fiber lasers and sensing systems.

"We are excited to add the Norland fiber products to our portfolio," said Alex Cable, president and founder of Thorlabs. "The product offering is a natural extension to our Vytran fiber processing competencies, allowing us to provide more sophisticated and automated solutions to address the various inspection needs that arise on the factory floor."

Thorlabs, a vertically integrated photonics products manufacturer, was founded in 1989 to serve the laser and electro-optics research market. As that market has spawned a multitude of technical innovations, Thorlabs has extended its core competencies to serve the photonics industry at the research end, as well as the industrial, life science, medical, and defense segments. Its manufacturing assets include semiconductor fabrication of Fabry-Perot, DFB, and VCSEL lasers; fiber towers for drawing both silica and fluoride glass optical fibers; MBE/MOCVD epitaxial wafer growth reactors; extensive glass and metal fabrication facilities; thin-film deposition capabilities; and optomechanical and optoelectronic shops.

SOURCE: Thorlabs; https://www.thorlabs.com/PressReleases.cfm?ReleaseID=100

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.

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