Technology Transfer Program

Thursday 13 June 2013
Exhibit Hall Session Area

The Technology Transfer Program provides a forum for entrepreneurs and researchers from start-ups, major universities, businesses and national laboratories to present exciting new technologies which are ready and available for commercialization. The Program will kick off with a Tutorial for those that want to learn more about the licensing process – funding, entrepreneurship, technology transfer and intellectual property.  During the Showcase, attendees will hear from several organizations about their latest license-ready optics and photonics technologies (intellectual property from universities and laboratories) that could lead to new commercial products or improve the efficiency, durability or availability of existing components or systems.  In addition, organizations will feature their license ready technologies at tabletop displays in the exhibit hall.

Tabletop Display – FREE for Organizations to Present License Ready Technologies

A designated space near the Program area will be reserved for tabletops for interested organizations to showcase license ready technologies.  The free space is available on a first come, first serve basis. Please email cam@osa.org to request an application, which will be reviewed and approved by CLEO management and the CLEO Technology Transfer Program Committee.

Program Schedule*

Keynote Presentation

A Tale of Two Companies:  It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times
Robert A. Norwood, Professor, College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona; formerly Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Photon-X, Inc.

The talk will discuss the birth to near death story of a photonics startup, Photon-X, that the speaker cofounded.  The presentation will focus on the series of significant personal decisions that the speaker needed to address from the founding to the eventual management buyout of the company.  While the story takes place during the fiber optics boom of the late 1990’s, the hard choices discussed are confronted by technology entrepreneurs in any era.  
 
Speaker Profile

Robert A. Norwood is a Professor in the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, where he performs research on high speed electro-optic modulators and switches, integrated magneto-optic devices, polymer-based integrated optics, 3-D display technology, nanoimprinting, organic photovoltaics, nonlinear optical fibers, optical microresonators and ultrafast optical switcing among other areas.  Dr. Norwood was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Photon-X, Inc., a venture capital funded photonics startup company based in Malvern, PA and started in 1999; the company set the record for the lowest-loss single-mode polymer waveguides ever developed at 1550nm. 

He led R&D groups at AlliedSignal (Honeywell) and Hoechst Celanese; his group at AlliedSignal developed aerospace qualified polymer waveguide technology that was the best in the world at the time; he helped to secure the sale of this business to Corning Photonics in 1999. 

He is a world expert in polymer integrated optics and optical materials, with more than 75 refereed publications, 6 book chapters, 29 issued US patents, and 55 invited talks. Dr. Norwood has served as a conference chair or co-chair for Organic Thin Films for Photonics Applications (OSA) and Linear and Nonlinear Optics in Organic Materials (SPIE), and has served on the program committee for both OFC (subcommittee chair) and CLEO, among others.  He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and Optical Materials Express.  He is both an OSA fellow and an SPIE fellow, as well as a member of the American Physical Society and IEEE.  He recently completed a term as the Chair of the OSA Fellows committee.  He teaches courses on photonics, nonlinear photonics, and technology commercialization, as well as the senior photonics laboratory in the College of Optical Sciences.  He holds a Ph. D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and the B.S. in physics and mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.       

Company Overview
Photon-X is a customer driven, technology-based company dedicated to the research, development and manufacturing of advanced photonic devices for optical communications, biomedical sensors, RF/military applications and other emerging commercial markets. The company's products are based on its unique knowledge of nanofabrication technology, high performance/advanced photonic polymers, nanoparticle doping, photonic waveguide device design and manufacturing. The company is dedicated to producing high quality, high reliability products for its customers and to providing world-class customer support.  The company’s extraordinary achievements include exceptionally low-loss single-mode polymer waveguides (< 0.05 dB/cm at 1550nm) and compact optical amplifier technology.