Technology development company Lightwave Logic, Inc. (OTCQB: LWLG) says it has created a new way to combine multiple chromophores (dyes) into a single polymer host that will significantly improve its ability to generate powerful organic non-linear optical polymers for optical communications applications. The company plans to file two new provisional patents relating to this methodology.
Lightwave Logic has pursued polymer material as a foundation for electro-optic devices for some time (see, for example, "Lightwave Logic producing prototype photonic chip" and "Lightwave Logic touts organic polymer modulator performance"). The company says the new chemistry process can enable multiple chromophores to work in concert with each other within a single polymer host. This proprietary process has created two new material systems that the company asserts have demonstrated outstanding electro-optic values in laboratory tests. Lightwave Logic claims that initial thermal stability results exceed those from any commercially available organic nonlinear polymer material system.
The company and its partners are further analyzing the performance properties of the new materials, including aging data, before incorporating them into photonic device designs.
Tom Zelibor, Lightwave Logic’s CEO, said, "This unique approach to electro-optic polymer development allows for a greater concentration (loading) of the chromophore compound with the selected polymer host, which is now more accurately a material system rather than a single material. This will result in more powerful organic-polymer-enabled photonic devices to target product opportunities in the multi-billion dollar telecommunications and data communications markets that are desperate for faster data rates, reduced cost, and flexible form factors.
The demand for devices that can move 100 Gbps at a price point under $500 per gigabit is in the millions of units per year, Lightwave Logic claims. The company believes organic polymers can achieve this capability and price.
Lou Bintz, vice president product development, added, "In addition to being able to combine chromophores into a single host polymer, we can also manipulate the periphery of our core ‘Perkinamine’ chromophores. We now have the flexibility of a nanoscale molecular range of color that allows us to adjust the absorption properties of the electro-optic polymers to address the individual frequency requirements of specific applications."
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