Bozeman Daily Chronicle

May 7, 1999

By Tom Lutey
Chronicle Staff Writer

A Bozeman-based laser manufacturer will begin adding high-tech NASA equipment to its products, under an agreement signed Thursday with the space agency.

Big Sky Laser will use the technology to protect its equipment from stray beams of laser light. Premature bursts of laser light can damage the optical lenses crucial to laser production.

A patent lawyer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration met with Big Sky Laser President Ed Teppo to license the company's use of NASA technology. As the two sat at a small table in the lobby of the Life of Montana Building, representatives for Montana's three congressmen looked on, along with Montana State University President Mike Malone and others from MSU.

At the center of the small ceremony sat a circuit board the size of a credit card.

Teppo said the NASA circuitry is designed to detect stray beams of laser light and shut down the machine producing the light before tiny scratches begin appearing on its optical equipment.

"It gives the user a little bit more peace of mind and a little more confidence in the product," Teppo said.

Displaying the "damage" done by the laser, Teppo produced a three dimensional etching of the Walt Disney character Goofy, crafted inside a solid glass cube. Laser equipment was able to create the image inside the cube by making microscopic scratches inside the glass.

Big Sky Laser products are used for a variety of purposes. The company's smaller lasers are used in place of lancets to draw small blood samples. Lasers are used to detect air pollution and leaking gas lines, and in dental and medical surgery.

NASA originally developed the technology to sense the earth's atmosphere remotely from space.

NASA attorney Kurt Hammerle said the federal National Technology Transfer Act made it possible for the circuitry to be shared.

The act encourages government agencies to share their technologies with private businesses and universities.

Big Sky Laser received license to use the NASA equipment through the help of NASA-MSU Techlink, a technology and transfer and commercialization partnership between NASA and Montana State University.

Malone said the technology sharing should translate into more high-tech jobs locally for MSU graduates.

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