San Diego Startup’s Breakthrough Is Making Lasers “the Color of Heat”

mid-IR energy at a specific wavelength or make lasers tunable for a range of mid-IR wavelengths. “It’s an exciting platform,” Larson said. “It can be modular or tailored to different applications very quickly.”

Mid-IR Laser
Mid-IR Laser

So how are these lasers used? The applications for mid-IR lasers are particularly compelling for detection, environmental monitoring, and medical diagnostics because nearly all molecules absorb energy at specific wavelengths of the mid-IR spectrum, Day said. The most exciting application, however, may be in defense—where Daylight Solutions’ lasers offer promise in thwarting heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.

As Day explained it, such missiles track the distinctive heat signature of the aircraft’ engines, regardless of whether the aircraft is a fighter jet, a lumbering helicopter, or a jetliner loaded with civilian passengers. By mounting a mid-IR laser aboard the targeted aircraft, Day said, “We send back a beam that confuses the missile, if you will, so it goes off course.”

Beyond its use in infrared countermeasures, though, most applications call for using the company’s laser technology to detect specific molecules. “It’s a classic, multi-use technology that has applications in defense and national security as well as medical and industrial applications,” Day said.

Yet the uses he listed sounded like the stuff of science fiction. In medical diagnostics, for example, a mid-IR laser would be used primarily to scan a patient’s breath. Day said it is sensitive enough to detect:

—Certain types of ulcers and stomach cancers from the telltale molecular signature of H. pylori, the bacteria strongly associated with such ailments.

—Glucose in the breath of diabetic patients, a diagnostic test that could offer an alternative to continual finger pricks for conventional blood sugar measurements.

—Carbonyl sulfide in patients’ breath as a potential indicator of liver disease.

In industrial and environmental applications, Day said mid-IR lasers can be used to detect a variety of toxic molecules, including benzene, toluene, xylene and nickel carbonyl, a liquid so poisonous at room temperature that it’s also known as “liquid death.”

Paul Larson
Paul Larson

The co-founders told me the company has received five patents for its technology so far, with another dozen or so pending. The company has been selling its lasers since mid-2006. Since its start, Larson said Daylight Solutions has raised a total of $13 million in venture founding through two rounds from Jade Invest SA, a Swiss venture capital firm; Innotech, a technology company based in Singapore; Masters Capital, a Chicago private equity firm; and individual investors. “The company has been doing well,” Larson said, and is expanding beyond its 23 employees.

Day said his goal is to create separate divisions of Daylight Solutions to focus on the markets it has targeted in defense, medical diagnostics, and industrial and environmental monitoring. “Our strategy is to build the strongest, best company we can,” Day said. “Our philosophy is that good companies are bought, not sold.”
While there are laboratory instruments capable of identifying specific molecules by detecting their specific mid-IR absorption, Daylight Solutions says such equipment is bulky and expensive, and often requires cryogenic cooling or high power to operate. In contrast, the latest version of Daylight Solutions’ laser is about the size of a quarter, and can operate in nearly any environment, from hospital operating rooms to military battlefields.

Day said the company has even developed a version of its laser that could be mounted in the ceiling or dashboard of a car for use as a breathalyzer. If the laser detects a sufficient number of alcohol molecules in the air, the driver would not be able to start the car.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.