Co-founded by the then Deputy Associate Director for Advanced Lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and author of numerous articles and holder of multiple patents inte area of diode laser systems, the firm received its SBIR awards as Star Medical Technologies and operated as a subsiduary of Palomar Medical Technologies, Lexington, MA. The focus was on manufacture of stock and custom high-power and high-pulse energy diode array laser systems. In 1998 the firm was acquired by Coherent Inc. and renamed Coherent Star applying Star's semiconductor laser technology to other commercial and medical applications. Still at the same location, the company changed their name to Coherent Medical Group. In 2001, Lumenis was formed through merger of Coherent Medical Group and ESC/Sharplan. In 2004, Mass General Hospital had granted exclusive worldwide licensing rights to Palomar Medical Technologies division Star Medical Technologies for technology for diagnosing and determining proper treatment for severely burned patients.
