The OG Story
The Vision: A Perfect Mirror
In 1998, driven by the goal of discovering the “perfect mirror”, a surface that reflects lights of all wavelengths and from all angles, a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed a simple solution to a seemingly impossible problem. Yoel Fink, Joshua Winn and Shanhui Fan (advised by Professors John Joannopoulos and Edwin Thomas) discovered a new type of planar reflector which allowed for the first time to combine the best features of all known mirrors and achieved “omnidirectional reflectivity”: the perfect mirror. This discovery was published in Science in November 1998, and its practical significance was captured in the abstract: “Because the omnidirectionality criterion is general, it can be used to design omnidirectional reflectors in many frequency ranges of interest. Potential uses depend on the geometry of the system. For example, coating of an enclosure will result in an optical cavity. A hollow tube will produce a low-loss, broadband
waveguide…..”
This discovery was considered by many as a major breakthrough, it was cited in Science Magazine Breakthrough of the Year feature in 1999, placed second only to the Human Genome Project.
The Revelation: A Light at the End of the Tunnel
The first “omnidirectional reflector” for guiding light was created by Yoel Fink in 1998. At that time, a short 10cm waveguide segment was produced used a combination of dip coating and evaporation. Though the proptype waveguide was large and inflexible, it produced, for the first time ever, light transmission at 10.6 microns around a 90 degree bend. The result of this work, published in 1999, demonstrated not only the resolution of a specific problem, the transmission of CO2 laser wavelength, but also established a general solution applicable to many wavelengths of interest, important in diverse fields such as telecommunications, medical lasers, and industrial, high-power lasers.
The OmniGuide® BeamPath™ flexible CO2 laser system: A reality now
In 2002, Shandon Hart and Garry Maskaly (then students in Fink’s lab) demonstrated the first drawing of an omnidirectional mirror in fiber form. That very year, two papers were published. The first, in Science, detailed the drawing of the first mirror for reflection purposes. The second, in Nature, was the first “omniguide” fiber in which CO2 laser transmission through the microscopic, multi-layer structure was demonstrated. These papers opened the path for large scale production, and eventually towards commercialization.
The technology was licensed exclusively to OmniGuide by MIT for further development in 2003. By the end of 2006, manufacturing processes has evolved to a point where OmniGuide started building a sales and service team. Since then, the BeamPath™ fiber system has been used in over 8,000 adult and pediatric surgical procedures in the fields of Neurosurgery & Spine Oncology, Otology, Head & Neck Oncology, Laryngology, Gynecology, Pulmonology and Gastroenterology.