PERFORMANCE
OF
COMPLETED
PROJECTS
STATUS REPORT
NUMBER 1
NIST SPECIAL PUBLICATION 950-1
Economic Assessment Office
Advanced Technology Program
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899
William F. Long
Business Performance Research Associates, Inc.
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
March 1999
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Executive Summary
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 - Overview of Completed Projects
Characteristics
of the Projects
Timeline of Expected ATP Project
Activities and Impacts
Gains in Technical Knowledge
Dissemination of New Knowledge
Commercialization of the New Technology
Broad-Based Economic Benefits
CHAPTER 2 - Biotechnology
Aastrom
Biosciences, Inc.
Aphios Corporation
Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Thermo Trilogy Corporation
Tissue Engineering, Inc.
CHAPTER 3 - Chemicals and Chemical Processing
BioTraces,
Inc.
CHAPTER 4 - Discrete Manufacturing
Auto
Body Consortium (Joint Venture)
HelpMate Robotics, Inc.
PreAmp Consortium (Joint Venture)
Saginaw Machine Systems, Inc.
CHAPTER 5 - Electronics
Accuwave
Corporation
AstroPower, Inc.
Cree Research, Inc.
Cynosure, Inc.
Diamond Semiconductor Group, LLC
FSI International, Inc.
Galileo Corporation
Hampshire Instruments, Inc. (Joint Venture)
Illinois Superconductor Corporation
Light Age, Inc.
Lucent Technologies, Inc.
Multi-Film Venture (Joint Venture)
Nonvolatile Electronics, Inc.
Spire Corporation
Thomas Electronics, Inc.
CHAPTER 6 - Energy and Environment
American
Superconductor Corporation
Armstrong World Industries, Inc.
E.I. duPont de Nemours & Company
Michigan Molecular Institute
CHAPTER 7 - Information, Computers, and Communications
Communication Intelligence
Corporation #1
Communication Intelligence Corporation #2
Engineering Animation, Inc.
ETOM Technologies, Inc.
Mathematical Technologies, Inc.
Torrent Systems, Inc.
CHAPTER 8 - Materials
AlliedSignal, Inc.
Geltech Incorporated
IBM Corporation
APPENDICES
Appendix
A: Development of New Knowledge and Early Commercial Products
and Processes
Appendix
B: Terminated Projects
END NOTES
End Notes
Click here
for PDF version of report.
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Cynosure, Inc.
Harnessing Cheap Diode Lasers to Power a Low-Cost Surgical Laser
| Surgery is performed tens
of millions of times a year in the United States, and it is
usually a painful, risky procedure for the patient. It is also
risky for the surgeon in terms of malpractice liability. Patients,
surgeons and health insurance companies are constantly looking
for new, less-invasive procedures to replace conventional surgery.
Laser surgery is a prime candidate. One problem that limits
this approach, however, is the price of equipment. A typical
100-watt surgical laser costs about $700 to $1,000 per watt
of laser output, or about $70,000 to $100,000. |
A Laser for Lower-Cost,
Less-Invasive Surgery
This ATP project with Cynosure, founded
in 1991, was designed to develop a smaller, less-expensive laser
source for surgery and other applications. The idea behind the Cynosure
laser system - which was expected to sell for about $150 to $200
per watt of laser light delivered at the end of a surgical optical
fiber - is based on harnessing the light from an array of 200 semiconductor,
or diode, lasers. The problem with this approach in the past has
been the difficulty of exactly aligning all 200 beams before they
go into the diffractive optics transformer that collimates them
into one tight, powerful beam. Minor inaccuracies in the alignment
of the individual lasers can greatly degrade the performance of
the system.
Cynosure's innovation was to develop
an automated system to custom-mill arrays of 200 corrective lenses
to match arrays of 200 diode lasers. In such a system, diagnostic
equipment measures the alignment error of each laser beam and feeds
the results to a computer, which drives a powerful laser that mills
the lens array in less than 10 minutes. The result is a customized
lenslet array that corrects the beams before they enter the transformer.
Photomicrograph of an arrange of multi-level diffractive lenses,
fabricated with a 193 nanometer excimer laser.
Barriers to Commercialization
Cynosure successfully designed and
built a customized lenslet array to correct the beams from an array
of 200 diode lasers. The researchers, however, failed to build a
system that could generate the target power level - 20 watts of
laser light from a medical optical fiber - because the company was
unable to secure an adequate, low-cost supply of a low-tech component:
a collimating array. The intended supplier, which was the sole source
of the collimating array, stopped making the device and sold its
production division. The new owner also chose not to produce the
array.
To make use of some of the technology
developed in the ATP project, Cynosure is collaborating with the
Lincoln Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
using about $100,000 from the Small Business Technology Transfer
Program to develop a "low-cost diode-laser system for treatment
of arrhythmia" for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
The company is proposing to extend the scope of the project to include
other conditions, besides arrhythmia, that can be treated with minimally
invasive surgery. This new project is based in part on the demonstration
that the ATP-funded technology, as modified by the company, is capable
of delivering 10 watts of power into a 100-micron fiber-optic tube.
Alternative Approach
After the ATP project, Cynosure investigated
alternative techniques, based on commercially available components,
to channel the many beams from diode-laser arrays into a surgical
optical fiber. The company found this can be done by grinding a
hyperbolic lens onto the end of a small optical fiber, fitting one
such fiber to each diode and stacking the fiber-coupled diodes into
a two-dimensional array, as the ATP proposal had suggested. The
fibers take the place of the diffractive optics in the proposed
ATP laser system, with the tiny lenses directing the output from
the diode array into a single fiber.
The company's switch to a different
technological approach using readily available parts to concentrate
the laser beams allowed commercialization to resume. Commercial
lasers are now scheduled to be available in the near future.
Mission Accomplished
Lower-cost, higher-power medical diode
lasers are a necessity for minimally invasive surgery, and it is
said that necessity is the mother of invention. Cynosure invented
the approach using fiber-coupled lasers, which are manufactured
using standard optical fabrication methods and readily available
components. The company expects this approach will not only reduce
the cost of medical lasers but will also cost less than the diffractive
optics-combiner approach envisioned by the ATP project.
By significantly reducing the cost
of surgical lasers, the Cynosure technology would enable wider use
of minimally invasive surgery, reducing hospitalization times and
lowering health-care costs. For example, gall bladder removal by
conventional surgery requires a 4- to 6-inch incision that results
in four to seven days of hospitalization and a month of recovery
time. When the removal is done by laser via a fiberoptic scope inserted
through a small incision (a procedure already in widespread use),
the patient is hospitalized for only two or three days and recovers
much faster. Less-costly medical lasers would likely increase gall
bladder removal by laser.
Funding from the ATP allowed Cynosure
to perform research and development work it would otherwise have
been unable to do. The award enabled it to hire highly qualified
optical physicists to conduct the research on diffractive optics,
and to develop the technical capability needed for future manufacture
of diffractive optics devices. Cynosure is currently considering
licensing this technology to a company whose core business is diffractive
optics. In addition, the availability of highly sophisticated optical
diagnostic equipment allowed Cynosure to better understand and test
the fiber-coupled equipment it is developing for the commercial
sector.
PROJECT:
To design an optical system for collecting, aligning and combining
beams from an array of semiconductor lasers into one powerful
beam, an achievement that will lead to the development of smaller,
cheaper lasers for surgery and other applications.
Duration: 5/1/1993 - 4/301995
ATP number: ATP number: 92-01-0136
FUNDING (in thousands)::
| ATP |
$1,965 |
49% |
| Company |
2,067 |
51% |
| Total |
$4,032 |
|
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Cynosure designed and built a fault-tolerant optical system
for a diode-laser array but was unable during the project
to obtain a laser beam with the targeted 20 watts of output
from a medical optical fiber. Later, the company achieved
this goal with an alternative approach built, in part, on
the knowledge developed during the ATP project. The company:
- received one patent for technology
related to the ATP project:
"Fault-Tolerant Optical System
Using Diode Laser Array" (No. 5,369,659: filed 12/7/1993,
granted 11/29/1994);
- published a paper on its research
findings;
- was ranked number 112 in the
1996 Inc. magazine list of the 500 fastest-growing private
companies in America;
- increased its sales from $626,000
in 1991 to more than $23 million in 1997; and
- is collaborating with Lincoln
Laboratory and using funds from the Small Business Technology
Transfer Program to develop a "low-cost diode-laser system
for treatment of arrhythmia," based on the ATP technology,
for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
COMMERCIALIZATION STATUS:
Commercialization was stymied by Cynosure's inability to secure
the supply of a critical part at an affordable price. Since
the ATP project ended, the company has taken a different,
less-sophisticated approach to building a commercializable
medical laser, using its own funds. That device has achieved
the 20-watt ATP goal, and the company is scaling it to achieve
200 watts output. Commercial lasers are scheduled for market
introduction in the near future.
OUTLOOK:
The benefits originally expected from commercialization of
the ATP-funded technology should be realized via commercialization
of the alternative technology that built on the technical
knowledge developed in the ATP project.
COMPANY:
Cynosure, Inc.
10 Elizabeth Drive
Chelmsford, MA 01824
Contact: Horace Furumoto
Phone: (978) 256-4200
Number of employees:
30 at project start, 120 at the end of 1997
Informal collaborator:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory
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Date created:
March 1999
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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