New fiber optic cable that can direct very specific light frequencies to kill cancer cells deep in the body without heat. Tiny technological marvels — a dozen could fit in your palm — used to maneuver satellites orbiting earth. Night vision goggles, infra-red sensors, and the domes at the front of smart, shoulder-launched Javelin and Stinger missiles.
Oh, and coming soon: A special lens that should help make nuclear fusion a reality.
“We do a lot more than cut glass,” Schott North America’s Bill James explained during a tour of the company’s Duryea facility Friday. The vice-president of research and development eagerly showed off the plant’s wide range of cutting-edge products to U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and Penn State Scranton Chancellor Marwan Wafa, stressing much of the success is owed to federal funding and a close partnership with Penn State University.
Cartwright “really does have our back,” James said of the representative’s help in getting federal funds into the research. “And it is great to have Penn State in our back yard.”
Cartwright and the others started in what amounted to the site’s bread-and-butter work: A room with furnaces on an upper deck that melt the glass components into glowing orange liquid that oozes out of platinum nozzles below, where workers can direct the flow into molds that, in turn, are placed in annealing ovens.