A new technology created by Heriot-Watt University is poised to upend one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in modern manufacturing.

FreeForm Photonics is set to commercialise a laser-based process that builds alignment directly into optical glass components, removing the painstaking manual calibration that currently accounts for more than half of all photonics production costs.

The result is a manufacturing pathway that is faster, cheaper and precise to sub-micron tolerances, a scale far smaller than the width of a human hair. It also removes the complexity that has long made photonic systems prohibitively expensive to scale.

The implications stretch across some of the most consequential technologies of the coming decade. Sectors like Quantum computing systems, next-generation medical diagnostics and the optical communications infrastructure underpinning the modern internet. These all depend on photonic components that are currently largely assembled by hand.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is launching the Knoxville Quantum Accelerator, also known as K-Quantum, to advance the region’s position as a leader in quantum technologies and systems. Unlike the digital computing systems we rely on today, quantum systems use elements of quantum mechanics — the complex behavior of atoms and subatomic particles — to process vast amounts of information quickly and in new ways. Leveraging those properties enables breakthroughs in applications ranging from drug discovery and advanced manufacturing to cryptography and optimization.