Valdosta company on the cutting edge - WALB.com, South Georgia News, Weather, Sports

Valdosta company on the cutting edge

By Alicia Eakin - bio | email

October 28, 2008

VALDOSTA, GA (WALB) - It's a technology rarely used before.

Growing diamonds and using adhesive free bonding to better laser, communications and military technologies.

This is the cutting edge work one Valdosta company studies.

In a war zone, technology can save lives and give any side a competitive edge.

"You want to have the most sophisticated technology that's out there," says Congressman Jack Kingston.  "It's been very important for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. What we want to do is have missiles that are the most exact, most precise."

Enter Valdosta optics. Here, they combine a mixture of gasses in a reactor to grow diamonds and study bonding techniques that are used for a number of laser technologies. That includes diamond windows for military missiles.

"The window's that are used in the heads of missiles so that the various tracking systems that are contained within the system and can be protected behind a medium but still function properly," says company president Corinna Meissner.

"The importance of diamonds is that when its in the sky, they don't heat up, they don't crack the way other materials do," Kingston adds.

Meaning the missiles with diamond technology should have better accuracy and effectiveness. This technology is still a work in progress and is just one of the many diamond and laser projects the company studies. All of which are on the cutting edge.

"The unique thing here is that they are growing a diamond that can be used in the bonding process so it's going to be a completely new technology not currently available," Meissner says.

Technology could save lives overseas once development and testing is complete.