About

Optomech-CNC founder Luke Williams has over 20 years of experience designing and building optomechanical prototypes and tooling for industry and scientific research, with extensive experience working on contamination sensitive systems for UHV, DUV, cryogenics, and high power lasers.

Luke spent 12 years as the Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer of the Input Optics System of the Advanced LIGO Project at the University of Florida (https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/). LIGO made the first detection of gravitational waves in September 2015 when it detected the collision and merger of two black holes. As an author on the discovery, Luke is a co-winner of both the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the 2016 Optical Society of America Team Engineering Excellence Award. Three of the LIGO project founders were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.

After completing the design and installation of the Advanced LIGO Input Optics, Luke founded Orchard Arms, where he designed and CNC machined a functioning prototype hunting pistol with an integral telescopic sight.

After completing the prototype, Luke decided against continuing with a business to sell firearms to the general public, and moved to Boulder, Colorado to work in the optics industry, with a focus on the design of tooling and prototypes used in semiconductor manufacturing. After working several years in industry, Luke returned to Gainesville, Florida and opened Optomech-CNC to combine his skills in both engineering and fabrication for the broader optomechanical community.