Ozark Laser Systems spins off U.S. Photonics

Armed with new lasers precise enough to scrawl on the tip of a strand of human hair, Ryan Zweerink is launching U.S. Photonics Inc. this week at Photonics West 2006, one of the nation's largest nanotechnology and photonics trade shows, in San Jose, Calif.

U.S. Photonics is an offshoot of Zweerink's Ozark Laser Systems, a six-year-old seller of laser and optical surveying equipment at 2519 E. Kearney.

Photonics is the technology of light transmission, control and detection, also known as fiber optics.

“We're nearing the atomic level,” Zweerink said, hoping to seize opportunities for his company's lasers in medical device manufacturing and in defense contract work.

U.S. Photonics already is working with PFM Engineering and Arbor Surgical Technologies to create more durable aortic heart valves and with federal nuclear science specialist Los Alamos National Laboratory on a defense project.

U.S. Photonics is looking to become the fourth tenant at Jordan Valley Innovation Center, at Boonville and Phelps, where renovations recently began. For the past 10 months, Zweerink and partners have been in discussions with Ryan Giedd, director of Missouri State University's Center for Applied Science and Engineering and point man for JVIC. Nanotechnology firms Brewer Science, Crosslink and Nantero already have signed long-term leases at JVIC.

“We're hoping to become the photonics company for the center,” Zweerink said. “We couldn't have written the script any better with that opportunity coming around right at the same time we are rolling our company out.”

Zweerink has two partners in U.S. Photonics: president Jacob Conner, who is moving over from Ozark Laser Systems, and a silent partner.

Zweerink and company also have their eyes on academia. They are presenting in mid-February to MSU's applied physics department. They also will make the lasers available to MSU students “at a greatly reduced rate … to get (them) interested in photonics,” Zweerink said. “The idea there is that we will be able to employ a lot of folks one day.”

Click here for the full story from Feb. 13.