There are few known alternatives to the use of high-peak power sub-nanosecond lasers for high quality laser manufacturing and surgery applications. This project plans to explore the use of ultrafast all-optical shutters and their use for non-thermal ablation by further developing an ultrafast all-optical shutter. The shutter allows sampling of high-peak power nanosecond laser pulses to produce high-peak power picosecond or femtosecond pulses that are well suited for non-thermal ablation of materials. This technology can operate across a wide spectral range. It can directly modulate high peak-power lasers and offers the ability to continuously tune the shutter's time window width.
The ultrafast all-optical shutter technology offers a novel approach towards producing sub-nanosecond optical pulses. Ultrafast laser pulses are finding an ever increasing range of applications in medicine, manufacturing, and technology as a whole. This technology has the potential to impact laser manufacturing and laser surgery by allowing replacement of expensive high peak-power sub-nanosecond lasers with less expensive nanosecond lasers combined with an ultrafast all-optical shutter; thereby, significantly decreasing the capital equipment and recurring cost for high-quality pulsed laser manufacturing and laser surgery. The increasing use of ultrafast lasers for the non-thermal ablation of materials in the areas of laser manufacturing and laser surgery combined with widespread use of this technology has the potential to make non-thermal laser ablation affordable for a wider range of customers.
" (Award Number 1342627) allowed a team of three researchers and a business mentor from the Georgia Institute of Technology to learn about and explore the commercialization of a novel ultrafast all-optical shutter technology through an intense customer discovery program as recently outlined by Steve Blank. The value proposition our team initially set to validate was: a novel dose-control system could be used as a precise and tunable ultrafast all-optical shutter to transform visible nanosecond laser pulses directly into picosecond pulses well suited for laser surgery and laser manufacturing. Through this program, our team learned to construct a business canvas model based on our value proposition, to formulate verifiable business hypothesis and to validate the hypothesis by learning to conduct customer discovery interviews. The program challenged us to conduct at least 100 customer discovery interviews within a period of six weeks. Our team conducted 108 customer interviews, in more than 8 states in the US and 4 different countries, leading to the following lessons: 1) Validating business hypothesis requires careful listening and asking the proper questions. 2) Focusing on few customer segments is vital to find a viable business model. 3) Technology generates value only if it solves concrete customer problems. 4) Serendipity can be your best friend during customer discovery. Specific to our technology we learned that the initial value proposition did not provide a solution to concrete customer problems, as such, we did not find any real customer segment to pursue. However, through the customer discovery process, we followed several leads until serendipity allowed us to realize that the ultrafast all-optical shutter technology could be repurposed to produce an ultrafast camera that could be used for a wide variety of applications. New hypothesis and more customer discovery interviews enabled us to discover a viable customer segment: doctors conducting medical procedures requiring X-ray imaging in surgical environments and the patients undergoing these procedures. The problem they face is that X-ray imaging uses ionizing radiation which increases the health risks for patients and doctors. The value proposition of our technology is that an ultrafast camera could enable imaging through human tissues using light and thus avoid the unnecessary health risks faced by doctors and patients continuously exposed to ionizing radiation. Because realization of such camera required further research, our decision was not to immediately pursue the formation of a startup company until the basic science and technology were further validated and more customer discovery interviews conducted. Despite this pivot in the middle of the program, our customer discovery efforts were rewarded with a "best in class" recognition from the teaching team.
