Polaroid group becomes Boston Laser

The laser-diode-manufacturing and development group of Polaroid Corp. (Cambridge, MA) is in the process of becoming a separate company called Boston Laser Inc. (BLI). In a transaction that is 90% complete, the group has been bought by Power Science (Nes Ziona, Israel), a firm that makes power supplies for devices including lasers, arc lamps, and flashlamps. Incorporated in Delaware, BLI remains at Polaroid's Norwood plant, where the laser-diode group once operated and where the new company is now renting space that includes an 8000-sq ft cleanroom. The chief executive officer of BLI is Aharon Meytahl, who also heads Power Science.

According to Aland Chin, BLI's chief operating officer and the former director of Polaroid's laser-diode group, interest was first sparked when Meytahl began looking at Polaroid's laser diodes. Rather than just buying some lasers, "he ended up buying the whole group," says Chin. Technology developed by the group includes laser diodes made from aluminum gallium arsenide, indium gallium arsenide, and aluminum indium gallium phosphide--many of them broad-area, high-power devices. The laser diodes were first developed in 1986 for Polaroid's medical imager, which uses a dry medium with carbon particles embedded in polymer to achieve high uniformity, stability, and resolution. Polaroid has since sold the imaging technology (minus the laser-diode group) to Stirling Diagnostics (Greenville, SC), a company now owned by Agfa Medical Imaging (Mortsel, Belgium).