Rochester, NY--Semrock is expanding into a new high-volume optics manufacturing facility that is capable of producing tens of thousands of spectrally complex, sputtered optical filters per year for high-volume OEM customers. The facility extends the company's into the emerging diagnostic and point-of-care healthcare markets where high-volume, miniaturized optics will be an enabling technology.
At the ribbon cutting ceremony on October 16, Michael Cumbo, president of IDEX Optics & Photonics (IOP), Semrock's parent organization, discussed how the expansion creates growth for Semrock and IOP. Rob Beeson, Semrock General Manager, described what this expansion will mean for growth in the Rochester optics cluster, and noted that the driver behind the expansion was Craig Hodgson, Semrock Director of Research and Development.
Beeson said, “As the revolution in personal healthcare proceeds, Semrock will continue to be at the forefront of enabling optical technology. This new facility will have the performance and reliability that customers expect, but in much higher volumes than ever before and at the right price points for the diagnostic market."
Semrock makes three product platforms for the biotech and analytical instrumentation market: optical filters for fluorescence instrumentation and microscopy, Raman instrumentation filters, and laser analytical instrumentation filters. Earlier in the year, Semrock announced that two of the first products to be manufactured in the new facility would be turning mirrors for femtosecond lasers. They are aimed at applications where femtosecond laser beams need to be guided from the output of the laser head to the sample, and are especially useful in multiphoton microscopy and femtosecond laser spectroscopy.
Conard Holton
Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.