The Coherent Ultrafast Center of Excellence:
Accelerating Innovation and Advancing Scientific Research
April 15, 2025 by Coherent
At Coherent, we believe that scientific progress is driven by cutting-edge technology and relentless innovation. As part of our ongoing commitment to pushing the boundaries of scientific research, we’ve built the Ultrafast Center of Excellence in Glasgow, Scotland—a state-of-the-art facility designed to fuel the future of ultrafast laser technology. This centralized hub not only amplifies our capacity for innovation, but also enables us to synergize product development across different industrial and scientific markets and applications, and add capabilities to our products that deliver exactly what the customer wants.
A Powerhouse for Performance and Innovation
The Coherent Ultrafast Center of Excellence isn’t just a manufacturing facility; it’s a powerhouse dedicated to producing lasers with unmatched performance. “By centralizing all ultrafast laser operations under one roof, we’ve created an environment that fosters innovation, collaboration, and the accelerated development of next-generation laser systems,” says Darryl McCoy, Vice President and General Manager of Coherent Scotland.
Faster Product Development: With all laser operations in one location, we can streamline research and development processes. With a single point of customer engagement, our engineers have a more intimate knowledge of the key characteristics that will bring success to our users. This enables us to bring new technologies to market faster, ensuring that our customers have access to the latest advancements without unnecessary delays.
Reduced Lead Times: The increased manufacturing capacity at the Ultrafast Center of Excellence means quicker production and shipment times. This reduction in lead times ensures that you get the advanced laser systems you need, exactly when you need them, enabling you to stay ahead in your research or production.
Advancing Scientific Research Through Operational Excellence
Scientific research requires precision, consistency, and reliability—and our manufacturing processes are designed to meet these exacting standards. The Coherent Ultrafast Center of Excellence leverages lean manufacturing and smart production techniques to maintain the highest quality while scaling output to meet global demand.
Consistency You Can Rely On: With our advanced manufacturing techniques, we deliver reliable products that meet rigorous scientific standards. Whether you’re working on complex multiphoton microscopy or advanced attosecond physics, you can trust that our laser systems will provide the performance you need.
Global Accessibility: Our efficient manufacturing process ensures that researchers around the world can access the latest laser technology without long delays. This accessibility helps ensure that groundbreaking discoveries and technological innovations can continue to move forward without the barriers of long wait times or unavailable tools.
Enabling Breakthroughs with Advanced Laser Systems
At the heart of the Ultrafast Center of Excellence is the development and continuous improvement of high-performance laser systems like the new Chameleon Discovery LX, the award-winning, cost-effective Axon, and the industry-leading Astrella. Stephen Duffy, Senior Director of Product Management at Coherent Scotland says, “These systems are designed with one goal in mind: to empower scientists and researchers to make significant breakthroughs in their respective fields. Our broad portfolio of cutting-edge technology and fast and effective service drive these breakthroughs in countless applications by keeping experiments up and running.”
Whether there is a need for dual-output lasers for multiphoton microscopy, high-power fiber lasers for optogenetics, compact, economical OEM lasers for instrumentation, or kHz amplifiers for spectroscopy, the Ultrafast Center of Excellence manufactures superior products meeting all of these needs.
Seamless Integration for Maximum Productivity: Our laser systems are built to be reliable, easy to use, and seamlessly integrated into existing workflows. This ensures that researchers spend more time focusing on their work and less time troubleshooting or managing complex equipment.
Applications That Push Boundaries: Our ultrafast laser portfolio helps tackle some of the most demanding tasks, from fundamental research to advanced industrial processes to pressing challenges in life sciences. For example, in the near future, fiber delivery of femtosecond laser pulses will become key to enable the use of multimodal imaging in clinical environments. This could save days or even weeks when analyzing tumor biopsies in real-time.
Commitment to Sustainability and Efficiency
The Ultrafast Center of Excellence is also designed with sustainability in mind. We’ve implemented energy-efficient practices to reduce our environmental footprint, and our streamlined manufacturing processes help minimize waste. These efforts not only align with global sustainability goals but also provide customers with products that are crafted using the most responsible practices. We have achieved ISO14001 and ISO50001 certifications covering our Environmental and Energy Management Systems respectively. As an illustration of our commitment to sustainability over the last three years, we reduced our electricity and gas consumption by 443,400kWh and 695,000kWh, respectively. In fiscal year 2024, the site was certified as Carbon Neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
Empowering Your Scientific Breakthroughs
Image: 3-photon imaging of mouse primary visual cortex through densely-labelled tissue. Green signal is expression of GCaMP6f; red channel is third harmonic signal generated by both white matter and vasculature. Excitation was done by Coherent Monaco/OPerA at 1300nm. Image courtesy of J. Reimer and A. Tolias (Baylor College of Medicine), and T. Wang, D. Ouzounov, and C. Xu (Cornell)
At Coherent, our mission is clear: to empower research, drive innovation, and lead the field of scientific lasers forward. The Ultrafast Center of Excellence in Glasgow is a pivotal part of this mission, providing a centralized hub for innovation and advanced manufacturing that produces an ever-improving portfolio of products designed to meet the changing needs of our customers and drive scientific progress. From cutting-edge laser system development to faster product delivery, all achieved through sustainable practices, we are committed to supporting your scientific breakthroughs and driving progress in the world of ultrafast lasers.
