Aug 25 2006
Si-Light Technologies Ltd, a spin-out company from the University of Surrey (UniS) has announced that it has received equity seed funding worth £150,000 ($284,000) from the Cascade Fund to develop silicon-based light emitters.
Si-Light will use this new investment to complete designs for demonstration prototypes of its patented silicon light emitter technology, and to deliver various milestones to bring the company to investor readiness. Si-Light’s patented technology enables the manufacturing of efficient silicon LED’s that emit light in the 1.2 microns to 1.5 microns spectrum, and which are compatible with standard semiconductor manufacturing processes.
Si-Light's technology is based on the discovery by its founder Kevin Homewood, a professor at the University of Surrey, that silicon featuring so-called "dislocation loops" can emit light. These dislocation loops, which are formed by implanting the silicon with rare-earth materials, produce strains that confine charge carriers and so improve the silicon's radiative efficiency.
"The frequency of light emission depends on what is implanted in the silicon," commented Si-Light CEO Kevin Arthur. "We want to look at different rare-earths and their impact on what is effectively a silicon LED."
"We have world leading technology here, and this new award from Cascade puts us on track to demonstrate silicon LED’s that will revolutionise the production of inexpensive optoelectronic transceivers, for applications such as rack-to-rack parallel communications, optical backplanes and fibre to the home systems. We are very excited about the prospects for this potentially game-changing technology."
Anthony Woolhouse, Assistant Director of UniSdirect, which works to maximise the performance of UniS in research, enterprise and knowledge transfer, says, "The combination of an experienced professional management team together with a talented technical team gives Si Light an excellent opportunity to develop the exciting inventions made here at Surrey into commercially valuable products."
Si-Light is based in the SETsquared facility on the Surrey Research Park in Guildford.
The Cascade Fund was created to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and provide financial and business assistance to commercialise, together with the University technology transfer offices, the inventions and ideas arising from the research undertaken in the five partner universities: Brunel, Reading, Royal Holloway, Surrey & Sussex.
http://www.ati.surrey.ac.uk/