Photonics spin-out enters US through distribution deal.

SOUTHAMPTON (England); ENGLAND

The article reports that University of Southampton photonics spin-out Stratophase has signed a distribution deal with the U.S. optoelectronics firm Thorlabs Inc. is looking for second round funding. Stratophase span out with two inventions from the university's Optoelectronics Research Centre, a method of making periodically-poled lithium niobate, a non-linear colour-changing material; and a technology to write complex optical circuits into glass with a UV laser. The direct-write UV process writes waveguides and Bragg gratings into a germanium doped silica layer between two undoped layers.