Heriot-Watt University has begun a five-year partnership with Netherlands-based ASML, a major supplier to the semiconductor industry, to pursue the advancement of new light source technologies. The collaboration, funded by ASML, will specifically aim to accelerate research into fundamental physics by Heriot-Watt professor John Travers, to create a direct route from lab to market for new laser technologies.
As part of the collaboration, ASML provided a new laboratory to Heriot-Watt University. Travers’ current focus is on new broad bandwidth light sources for optical metrology. The sensors in ASML’s machines must work at multiple wavelengths because they encounter various materials, each with different absorption properties.
Travers’ team has already achieved multiple patents related to its technology.
Heriot-Watt University began a similar five-year collaboration with ultrafast laser manufacturer Chromacity in December 2020.