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Making, inventing, fabricating, creating: Activities that drive America’s innovation history and shape the economic landscape of the nation. President Obama proclaimed June 12 – 18 a National Week of Making. Coast to coast, in cities and rural areas, Americans answered the President’s call to “renew our resolve to harness the potential of our time —…

In recent years pharmaceutical and medical device processors have increasingly relied upon packaging quality to improve product shelf life and efficacy. Whenever there is any sort of physical breach of the packaging structure, the product integrity is compromised, reducing yields and possibly safety. The resulting costs associated with poor quality in turn increase a supplier’s…

Potomac Photonics laser micromachines small windows in glass to support research at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. Asthma is one of the leading health conditions in the world. According to the US Centers for Disease Control there are 18.7 million adults and an additional 6.8 million children living in the United States with the pulmonary…

Potomac was recently honored to be included in NASA’s Technology Day on the Hill, an annual event that showcases the latest transformational technologies that have resulted from NASA funding.  In addition to one half-dozen congressional lawmakers and almost 300 Hill staffers, our President and CEO, Mike Adelstein, had the distinct pleasure of meeting NASA Director…

Having the chance to improve safety of large industrial systems is a gratifying application in our digital fabrication work. One such application recently presented itself to Potomac through the University of Oklahoma’s [OU] School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Growing out of a prime geographic location in the oil industry, the University of Oklahoma conducts…

Over the last few years, Inside 3D Printing has proven to be a lively, educational event that takes place around the globe. The New York version this year has grown to a full 3D Printing Week with multiple activities around the city the week of April 13 for everyone from the 3D Printing professional to…

Potomac is thrilled to announce that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] has invited us to demonstrate our digital fabrication technologies at NASA Technology Day, April 29, on Capitol Hill. We’ll be showing samples of the many types of medical device and biotech products Potomac has manufactured as an outgrowth of research conducted for…

Digital fabrication processes such as laser micromachining and 3D Printing have had enormous impact on manufacturing by allowing for rapid prototyping and testing of new product designs. These digital fabrication tools are driven by instructions from a computer aided design [CAD] file, so that any changes are made quickly and easily on the computer. With…

Engineering is a process, a continual development of new techniques to improve products so that we can expand their usefulness via better performance, longer lifetime and reduced cost. And it’s even more gratifying when the engineering process improvement saves more lives. Recently, Potomac had the opportunity to do just that in work for the Department…

In recent years, Potomac has done some rather interesting laser coding and marking work for customers.  With the current celebration of black history month, we’d like to share one such project using QR Codes to help a headstone company bring black history to life for a Washington, D.C. cemetery. Congressional Cemetery is an historic resting…

Last week the laser community was saddened to learn of the death of Charles Townes, one of the inventors of the laser. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation [LASER] devices are such a part of 21st century life that we now take them for granted but they are a fairly recent 20th century invention.…