Lithuanian laser maker LITILIT is trying to move femtosecond technology further into industrial production, using an €8 million loan from national development bank ILTE as part of a €10 million programme to build a modular high-power platform for factory environments.

The FEMODA project targets up to 1,000W of average optical power distributed across 10 to 20 separate beam channels, allowing one system to serve multiple processing points on a production line. Commercialisation is planned for the second half of 2029.

Although the €8 million financing was granted earlier this year, the August update adds detail on the wider €10 million industrial programme and how the technology is intended to be deployed. LITILIT is contributing €2 million of its own capital alongside the ILTE-backed loan.

Femtosecond lasers use pulses measured in quadrillionths of a second, enabling materials to be cut, ablated, or structured with very limited heat transfer to surrounding areas. That makes them useful in semiconductors, displays, precision electronics, medical technology, and other applications where thermal damage can reduce yield or quality.

Modularity targets the integration problem

The difficulty is that high-performance laser systems have often been built around complex infrastructure, specialist cooling, sensitive optical assemblies, and tightly controlled conditions. Those requirements are manageable in laboratories or specialist production cells, but they become more expensive when manufacturers want to deploy the technology across ordinary factory lines.

FEMODA is intended to combine control electronics, optics, and cooling in one integrated industrial unit. Its modular architecture should also allow an individual component or beam module to be replaced without taking the entire system out of service, reducing a maintenance problem that becomes more significant as lasers move into continuous production.

Splitting high optical power across multiple beam channels is another attempt to address factory economics. Instead of pushing a single processing point to extreme power, parallel channels can carry out several operations at once, potentially increasing throughput while keeping each process within a more manageable operating envelope.

LITILIT says the system could open larger-scale uses including metal-tool production and specialised coatings on broad surfaces, while increasing throughput in established applications such as semiconductor and display manufacturing. The commercial test will be whether the architecture is easier enough to install and maintain to offset the cost of moving from conventional laser systems to a new modular platform.

European deeptech moves towards production

The project sits within a wider shift in European deeptech funding from invention towards industrialisation. Photonics has long been an area of scientific strength in Lithuania, but building a globally relevant manufacturing business requires more than patented optical designs; companies also need repeatable assembly, testing, quality control, supply chains, and production capacity.

LITILIT is developing a new Vilnius facility alongside FEMODA, with the plant expected to start operating this year and eventually target annual capacity of up to 3,000 femtosecond lasers. During its first year the company expects output to be lower, before scaling as processes and demand mature.

That manufacturing expansion gives the financing a different character from a conventional research grant. The company is not only trying to prove that a laser architecture works but also that it can be built, serviced, and delivered in volumes suitable for industrial customers.

For European advanced-manufacturing policy, that distinction is increasingly important. Public finance can help bridge the gap between laboratory capability and factory-scale production, although it does not remove the need for demand from semiconductor, electronics, aerospace, and other industrial customers willing to redesign processes around new equipment.

By 2029, FEMODA will therefore be judged less by its headline power figure than by uptime, serviceability, integration cost, and throughput on real production lines. Those are the measures that determine whether ultrafast lasers become a broader manufacturing tool rather than remaining a specialist technology concentrated in high-value niches.