15 Years of Bringing Answers to Light
What Really Matters
We value the opportunities to learn and to grow -- and toexpand the frontiers of optical sensing -- that come from
partnership. Recognizing and seizing these opportunities is
what Ocean Optics is all about -- and is reflected in an open,
collaborative approach that appeals to everyone from the
innovators and early adopters to the skeptics and the
traditionalists.
Ocean Optics in 2007: 100,000 Spectrometers!
Founded in 1989, Ocean Optics manufactures miniature fiber
optic spectrometers and accessories,
optical sensors, optical
fibers, and thin films and optics. Our palm-sized fiber optic
spectrometer -- “the world’s first miniature fiber optic
spectrometer” -- has spawned dozens of imitators and enabled
thousands of optical-sensing applications across a variety of
industries and disciplines. We’ve never been much for self-
congratulation, but Ocean Optics will mark two major
milestones in 2007: the 15th anniversary of our first sale, and
the 100,000th spectrometer sold since 1992. So we’ve paused
to reflect:
NanoDrop Technologies founder and engineering director, Charles Robertson,celebrates our 50,000th spectrometer sold in 2005. We started in 1989, when our founding fathers, a group
of university researchers, developed a fiber optic pH
sensor to study the role of the oceans in global warming.
Later, a Small Business Innovation Research grant from
the U.S. Department of Energy led to the development of
the world’s first miniature fiber optic spectrometer. If you took all 100,000 spectrometers and laid themend-to-end, the line would stretch for nearly eight miles. Our first commercial sale was in April 1992, to a
researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratories named
Ed Kaukell. Ed purchased an S1000 Spectrometer, which
he used in an application involving plutonium. Years
later we tracked down that first spectrometer -- no, it’s
not radioactive -- and now display it at company
headquarters. The
optical benches of the 100,000 spectrometersproject spectra across approximately 200 million
detector pixels.From its humble beginnings as a garage-shop operation withjust a handful of products, Ocean Optics has grown to two
manufacturing facilities and four Sales, Service & Support
locations worldwide selling nearly 1,200 unique products. Ourspectrometers have been used in thousands of applications,from the volcanologist who duct-taped the spectrometer to a
bicycle helmet as he ventured inside an active site to monitor
sulphur dioxide, to the NASA researcher who strapped thespectrometer to a reentry rocket to measure its exhaust plume.Thanks to the thousands of Ocean Optics customers who havehelped us achieve such milestones!
Our Value Proposition In 1993, our S1000 Miniature Fiber Optic Spectrometer
earned the Photonics Circle of Excellence Award, which
recognizes innovation in photonics. We also won the
award in 2000 and 2003. Our original miniature fiber optic spectrometer, the
S1000, retailed for $1,800 and required an additional
$500 A/D
Industrial converter. Its modern equivalent, the
USB4000 Spectrometer, retails for just $2,200 and
includes an onboard A/D Converter. At the end of 1992, we had about 20 items in our
product line. Today, we offer nearly 1,200 spectrometers
and accessories.
Ocean Optics Vision Statement To expand the frontiers ofoptical sensing and make itthe foundation on which innovative,life-changing ideas are built.
NanoDrop Technologies purchased our 50,000th
spectrometer, a milestone we celebrated in January
2005. NanoDrop, a Delaware-based supplier of UV-VIS
spectrophotometers for extremely small-
volume sampling, is a prototypical Ocean Optics
customer: a small team of researchers with an interesting application, the passion and know-how tomake it happen, and an appreciation for the advantagesof size, cost and flexibility that our spectrometersprovide.
oo
oo
For all your sensing needs, visit OceanOptics.com4