Nathan Jones, inventory/shipping assistant, inventories laser parts in special containers in the receiving department. The containers protect parts from dust and other particles until they’re ready to be cleaned and assembled into lasers.
Michelle Yencich, laser production assistant, removes laser parts from a vacuum oven that bakes the parts at high heat, part of a proprietary cleaning process. Parts will later be assembled into lasers in clean rooms.
Courtney Rickett, continuous improvement manager, shows the “hot table” that bakes water and other potential contaminants out of the lasers, tests them for leaks, and inserts their gases.
Kelly Hembree, warehouse specialist, packs a laser for shipping to a customer. Lasers are sealed in special bags and carefully padded within wooden shipping crates.
Sam Merriman, a laser test technician, adjusts a laser during beam testing in the ISO 8 clean room.
Philong Ho, a laser test technician, checks lasers in the company’s ISO 7 lab.
Borith Poch, an electronics assembly technician, works on radio frequency equipment that will provide the laser’s energy.
Lynda Protzeller, senior radio frequency assembler, works on a radio frequency part that will help power a laser.
Access Laser Co. CEO Yong Zhang, left, and Gordon Bluechel, chief operating officer, are seen inside one of the company’s labs.
Access Laser Co. CEO Yong Zhang, left, and Gordon Bluechel, chief operating officer, are seen inside one of the company’s labs.
An Everett company makes lasers used in everything from dental surgery to semiconductor manufacturing; and in a promising piece of business, its precision lasers also are incorporated into a customer’s new medical equipment to detect cancer in breath analyses.
“This is something that they’re in the process of slowly bringing out to market and is a great example of the exciting opportunities we have with our technology,” said Gordon Bluechel, chief operating officer of Access Laser Co.
Michelle Yencich, laser production assistant, removes laser parts from a vacuum oven that bakes the parts at high heat, part of a proprietary cleaning process. Parts will later be assembled into lasers in clean rooms.
Courtney Rickett, continuous improvement manager, shows the “hot table” that bakes water and other potential contaminants out of the lasers, tests them for leaks, and inserts their gases.
Access Laser, founded in 1999 by CEO Yong Zhang, makes precision molecular gas lasers that serve as enabling technology for its customers’ equipment. The gas that’s primarily used is CO2.
The company tailors its lasers to customers’ specific needs, providing the best lasers possible for customers’ applications, Bluechel said. Applications include life sciences and medical, material processing, and spectroscopy and measurement. The cancer-detection device is a spectroscopy application.
Kelly Hembree, warehouse specialist, packs a laser for shipping to a customer. Lasers are sealed in special bags and carefully padded within wooden shipping crates.
Sam Merriman, a laser test technician, adjusts a laser during beam testing in the ISO 8 clean room.
“Our lasers obviously tend to be more expensive, so that limits the market that we’re in; but if you need what we deliver, then you’re typically willing to pay that,” he said.
The company’s lasers sell for between a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company ships more than 500 lasers per year on average, mostly outside the country, Bluechel said.
Philong Ho, a laser test technician, checks lasers in the company’s ISO 7 lab.
Access Laser was the first to deliver a small CO2 laser that could be highly stabilized, he said. Stabilized lasers are the company’s forte. Stability is measured in three ways: power, wavelength, and mode, which is the quality of the beam. Access Laser precisely controls all three for optimum stability.
When Access Laser receives parts it will use to make a laser, it stores them in sealed containers to minimize particulate contamination, then puts them through a proprietary cleaning process, which includes baking the parts at high heat in a vacuum oven. It then builds and tests its lasers in ISO 7 and ISO 8 clean rooms to minimize risk of particulate contamination that could hinder laser performance, then runs them through a “hot table” to remove any potential impurities and test for gas leaks. Finally, they’re packaged in specially sealed bags, then placed in individual wooden shipping containers.
Borith Poch, an electronics assembly technician, works on radio frequency equipment that will provide the laser’s energy.
The company’s primary laser application occurs in semiconductor manufacturing, where its lasers are part of extreme ultraviolet lithography technology used to place the pattern of circuits inside microchips.
Another laser application is gum surgery, where a tool incorporating the laser can both cut and cauterize, minimizing bleeding. Access Laser also has developed a laser to replace a dentist’s drill. The laser can address smaller cavities without damaging the surrounding tooth and, for reasons still being researched, is painless for most patients, meaning no numbing agents are required, Bluechel said.
The laser’s wavelength also is excellent at removing existing composites, thus avoiding drilling and tooth damage. Plus, initial research shows new composites bond about 20 percent better to a tooth prepared by the company’s laser, he said, adding that research also indicates the laser’s wavelength changes tooth structure to improve cavity resistance.
The company, headed by Zhang, has about 86 employees: roughly 40 percent in production, almost 40 percent in technical development, and the balance in administration.
Lynda Protzeller, senior radio frequency assembler, works on a radio frequency part that will help power a laser.
Nathan Jones, inventory/shipping assistant, inventories laser parts in special containers in the receiving department. The containers protect parts from dust and other particles until they’re ready to be cleaned and assembled into lasers.
In 2017, Zhang, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering, and his partners sold an 85 percent stake in Access Laser to Trumpf Group, one of the largest photonics companies in the world.
That sale was pivotal for the earliest employees. Once, as the company still was evolving, Zhang realized he couldn’t make payroll and told the half-dozen workers he’d understand if they left or worked half-time until business improved. The employees, though, chose to work full-time for half-pay for several months, after which Zhang promised to make it up to them. He gave them virtual ownership at the time, calculated the increased value of that ownership after the 2017 sale, and paid employees that increase out of his proceeds, Bluechel said.
“That’s the type of person Yong is … that ethical belief in doing what’s fair and what’s right,” said Bluechel, who’s expected to replace Zhang as CEO and retain the same culture when Zhang retires this fall.