Several new startup companies have joined the Route des Lasers (Bordeaux, France), a competitiveness cluster for French photonics companies--Moria Lase, Irisiome, and Spark Lasers. A fourth, FemtoEasy, is scheduled to join the cluster in January 2016.
“During the last decade, we have helped create or locate close to 60 companies in the optics photonics sector,” said Hervé Floch, general manager of the Route des Lasers. “We are excited about the potential and growth opportunities of our new cluster members targeting medical applications and other emerging photonics markets.”
Moria Lase, a subsidiary of the Moria group, specializes in manufacturing surgical and dental material based on using pulsed IR-laser technology. Led by François Salin, former chairman of Eolite Lasers and the Center for Intense Lasers and Applications (CELIA), Moria Lase has opened an R&D center at the Institut d’Optique near Bordeaux.
Irisiome also conducts business in the medical field. Its founder, Romain Royon, developed a laser system at CELIA. This laser system can be tuned to wavelengths that will be principally used for applications in dermatology. Irisiome won the i-Lab Emerging Companies award in 2014 and the i-Lab Creation-Development award in 2015.
Spark Lasers develops and manufactures innovative picosecond lasers for industrial and scientific applications. These ultrafast lasers provide attractive cost-effective solutions to users needing high performance, reliable, compact, and rugged products. Spark Lasers is led by Pascal Bupriez, who until recently headed the laser sources and fiber components department of ALPhANOV, the technology center of the Route des Lasers cluster.
FemtoEasy is a spin-off of the CELIA laboratory in Bordeaux, which has strong expertise in high-energy ultrashort pulse production and metrology. The company brings new advantages to ultrahigh-energy laser systems.
Founded ten years ago, the Route des Lasers currently has 160 members, including 117 companies, mainly SMEs. It has attracted 58 new companies including 30 that have relocated to its industrial parks, and it has helped create 28 startups. To date, the cluster has created more than 1500 direct new jobs and generated up to 6500 indirect positions.
Source:Routes des Lasers