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Spinoff story
Micromachined Parts Advance Medicine, Astrophysics, and More
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
In the mid-1990s, Marshall Space Flight Center awarded two SBIR contracts to Potomac Photonics, now based in Baltimore, for the development of computerized workstations capable of mass-producing tiny, intricate, diffractive optical elements. While the company has since discontinued the workstations, those contracts set the stage for Potomac Photonics to be a leader in the micromachining industry, where NASA remains one of its clients.