Last week, the US and Lithuania signed a deal for critical minerals, aiming to reduce both countries’ dependency on single suppliers and potentially create partnerships in areas such as photonics.
According to Lithuanian femtosecond laser company LITILIT, such a partnership could significantly contribute to boosting the growing US industries such as semiconductors and data centres.
During the meeting, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Lithuania is a global leader in photonics, and called Lithuania a photonic power, highlighting Lithuania’s competences in the field. Meanwhile, the Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Kęstutis Budrys noted that Lithuania could increase exports of femtosecond lasers to the US and potentially form a decade-long partnership.
According to Nikolajus Gavrilinas, CEO of LITILIT, such a partnership could give an economic stimulus to the US’s growing industries: “Femtosecond lasers, due to their extreme precision and ability to delicately process materials, are increasingly used in advanced packaging of semiconductors, as well as in making equipment for optical components powering modern AI data centres, such as glass substrates. As the demand for these multi-billion industries grows, so will the demand for femtosecond lasers.”
The growing demand for precision manufacturing is already visible across US industry. Intel recently announced a partnership for precision laser glass processing capability to build its new glass substrate packaging for AI chips, while NVIDIA earlier this year backed Corning to expand US manufacturing of optical connectivity components for AI data centres.
Femtosecond lasers are also widely used in medical applications, including ophthalmic surgery, as well as in high-precision electronics manufacturing.
Meeting that demand at scale is exactly where Gavrilinas sees Lithuania’s opening.
“Even though Lithuania is a relatively small country, it has been developing its lasers for 60 years and is one of the world’s several leading laser hubs. It has both the science and the technology to produce world-leading lasers,” Gavrilinas says. “Another important factor is that Lithuania can produce these lasers at scale, which is typically very difficult, as manufacturing femtosecond lasers often requires a high level of skilled employees.”
LITILIT is currently finishing development of a femtosecond laser factory in Vilnius that, according to Gavrilinas, is on track to be the highest capacity in the world. The company builds lasers on two patented technologies (patent 1, patent 2): one invented by LITILIT co-founder Kęstutis Regelskis with Gediminas Račiukaitis of the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC), the other developed at LITILIT by Nerijus Rusteika, Ildar Galin, Regelskis and Nikolajus Gavrilinas.
The company’s lasers also rely on a purpose-built architecture, significantly reduced component complexity and a high level of production automation, which, according to Gavrilinas, allows it to approach femtosecond laser manufacturing differently from traditional production methods and scale production quickly.
During the first year after the launch, the company plans to manufacture 1,000 lasers a year and then scale towards 3,000 lasers per year as the factory reaches full capacity. In comparison, last year global production capacity of femtosecond lasers was only 9,600 units, according to Reports and Markets.
“Later, we plan to replicate our factory model with international partners in other regions, and the US is at the top of that list. Its semiconductor and AI industries are growing faster than almost anywhere else, and we want Lithuania to be part of that growth for decades to come,” Gavrilinas concludes.
