Organisation Description

Over 35 years since it was founded in 1971 as the first commercial spin-out company from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Instruments develops and manufactures a wide range of high technology, optoelectronics products within 3 Divisions for Lasers and Light Sources, Analytical Instruments and Gas Sensors. The company occupies custom designed premises of over 12,000sqft on the Kirkton Campus, Livingston housing 48 employees. Annual turnover is targeted to exceed £4M in the current year, with some 80% of manufactured products exported worldwide, mainly to Europe, Asia and North America. The company has received numerous awards for technological innovation and export achievement.

Edinburgh Instruments enjoys numerous international collaborations. In 1995 the company formed a strategic alliance with Hamamatsu Photonics KK, a leading Japanese optoelectronics company. The deal gave Hamamatsu a 25% holding of the company equity.

Within Edinburgh Instruments resides great expertise in the areas of optical design, light source design and electronic design for gas sensing systems, analytical and bio-analytical instruments for fluorescence and fluorescence lifetime measurement.

Product/Research Description

Infra-red gas lasers, including both continuous and pulsed carbon dioxide (CO₂) lasers in the 9-11μm range, carbon monoxide (CO) lasers in the 5.2-6.5μm range and far infra-red lasers stretching from 40μm to over 1mm are available with wavelength tuning and active stability control.

Pico Second Pulsed Lasers and Light Emitting Diodes are compact, integrated, pulsed light sources that allow user selected repetition rate. These sources are ideal for excitation of chemical and biological and semiconductor samples from the UV (250 nm) to the near infra-red.

Analytical Instruments including the world’s most sensitive steady state fluorimeter and fluorescence lifetime spectrometers (lifetimes from 5ps to 10s), all with single photon counting sensitivity, laser flash photolysis spectrometers and a wide variety of accessories including xenon arc lamps, nanosecond and microsecond flashlamps, pulsed lasers and LEDs, comprehensive state of the art analysis software, etc.

Gas Sensors based on non-dispersive infra-red techniques for measuring CO₂, CO, methane and other hydrocarbons and refrigerant gases for applications in air quality measurement, environmental and hazardous gas level measurement in industry.

New Products

The latest products from Edinburgh Instruments are:-
• LP920 Laser Flash Photolysis Spectrometer for studying the spectral and time dependence of short lived species following pulsed photolysis
• TCC900, a plug-in card containing all the electronics necessary for state of the art Time Correlated Single Photon Counting measurements.
• MiniTau fluorescence lifetime spectrometer and teaching kit
• Fluorescence Lifetime Plate Reader
• Modular gas sensors for refrigerant gases
• A new series of picosecond (ps) pulsed diode lasers and light emitting diodes (LED’s) with an integrated controller provides significant cost size benefits and greatly simplified user controls. Spectral coverage ranges from the UV (250 nm) through to the near infra red.

Quality Standards

ISO 9002 (2000)

Main Markets

• Scientific research in Universities, Government and industrial research laboratories.
• Gas sensors for process engineering, personal safety, ambient environment sensing, water quality (TOC), combustion, food storage and packaging, horticulture, animal husbandry, incubators, etc.

Services Offered

Bespoke systems manufacturing and technical consultancy services offered.

Collaboration Sought or Offered

The company seeks partners who want to commercially exploit their new innovative technology.