Nanophotonics anyone? (Technology).Luxtera Inc., a Pasadena start-up developing photonic technologies for application in telecommunications markets is out of the chute with $7 million in first-round venture funding. The company, which has its roots in the labs of both UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX and Caltech, raised the money from big venture capital players Sevin Rosen Funds Sevin Rosen Funds (SRF) is a venture capital firm that was established in 1981 by L.J. Sevin and Ben Rosen. SRF was involved in the financing of ArQule, CIENA, Citrix, Cypress Semiconductor, Electronic Arts, Lotus Development Corporation, Silicon Graphics, and Vitesse. , ITU Ventures This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. and August Capital. The business aims to commercialize nanophotonics technology -- optical structures an order of magnitude A change in quantity or volume as measured by the decimal point. For example, from tens to hundreds is one order of magnitude. Tens to thousands is two orders of magnitude; tens to millions is three orders of magnitude, etc. smaller than those traditionally used in integrated optical devices -- developed at Caltech and UCLA. John Oxaal, venture partner at Sevin Rosen, said Luxtera will be led by Alex Dickinson, a former Bell Labs executive, Eli Yablonovitch Eli Yablonovitch along with Sajeev John, was one of the two physicists who invented the field of photonic crystals in 1987. In addition to pioneering photonic crystals, he was the first to recognize that a strained quantum well laser has a significantly reduced threshold current , who invented the photonic crystal A nanostructured array of holes used as an optical semiconductor. Just as electronic bandgaps prevent electrons from passing through, photonic crystals create photonic bandgaps that confine light. at UCLA, and Caltech physics professor Axel Scherer, who has used photonic crystals to make some of the smallest ever lasers. Oxaal said Luxtera's products, which won't hit the market for another two years, will be used in telecommunications equipment. He declined to identify the product, but an advertisement recruiting a photonic design engineer for the company identifies the product as a semiconductor. Oxaal said Sevin Rosen and August Capital each invested $3.2 million and ITU Ventures put in $500,000. Upon forming Luxtera, company officials folded in Simulant Inc., a software developer started by Scherer and some students at Caltech. That business was started with $400,000 in seed funding from ITU Ventures. Simulant built a program that ties together PCs to solve a complex computing issue. By assigning each PC a part of the problem, the software approximates the computing power of a supercomputer at a fraction of the cost. |
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