Optical expertise a cornerstone for Starna

Starna Scientific Ltd (formerly Optiglass Ltd) is celebrating its 50^th anniversary and its lineage of optical expertise, traceable to the early part of the last century,  that reinforces the companies world-wide reputation for quality service and co-operation in the production and supply of spectrophotometer cells, optical components and Certified Reference Materials.

During the 1950s, the founding members of the company developed and perfected the technique of fully fusing optically polished component parts by heat alone, without distortion. This major advance transformed the design and production of spectrophotometer cells and associated products. Continual development and improvement is reflected in today’s products.

In 1964 the company started with a staff of two, which by 1968 had already grown to a skilled workforce of 50, its rapid growth demonstrating the success of its manufacturing processes.

Today Starna Scientific Ltd has over 100 employees at its manufacturing facility in Hainault to facilitate the production of several thousand product types each year in an ISO 9001 certified production facility, from design and development of a product through to scheduled production. Starna began manufacturing and selling solid fluorescent references in the 1960s, before successfully permanently flame-sealing its first liquid photometric reference standards in 1971. In 2001 the knowledge and expertise built up by the Starna Reference Material Calibration Laboratory over thirty years was recognised in its UKAS Accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025. Starna’s status as a leading producer of Certified Reference Materials was further underlined when it received the UK’s 1^st Certificate of Accreditation to ISO Guide 34 in 2006 as a Reference Material Producer.

Today the Starna CRM range continues to expand into new areas in UV-Vis, NIR, Fluorescence, HPLC & FTIR Spectroscopy references. The company exports over 90% of its production, with offices in the US, Germany, Australia and China, and representation in all of the developed and many developing markets worldwide.