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For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Amy Foschetti
Interprose PR
Phone: + 1 (703) 917-0972
[email protected]

NanoOpto Announces First Wafer Processed in its Somerset, NJ, Nano-fabrication Facility

First of Its Kind Nano-Manufacturing Capability Enables Scalable, High Volume Production of Subwavelength Optical Elements

Somerset, New Jersey. March 4, 2002. NanoOpto Corp., which is applying proprietary nano-optics and nano-manufacturing technology to design and make components for optical networking, announced today the establishment of initial production capabilities at its Somerset, NJ, nano-fabrication facility. This enables scalable, high volume production of the company’s line of subwavelength optical components, the first group of which, for polarization management, is now available for general sampling. (See the separate announcement for this product family, also issued today.)

NanoOpto’s nano-manufacturing technologies and the subwavelength optical elements created using it are the realization of 20 years of research by its principal founder and Chairman, Dr. Stephen Chou. “Nano-optics, or the use of subwavelength optical elements (SOEs), entails interaction with light based on entirely new physical principles. This allows optical processing to occur on a much smaller scale and to perform new functions that bulk optics cannot,” says Dr. Chou. “Many researchers have seen the commercial potential of SOEs. But what has been missing is the ability to make them in a scalable, high-speed manufacturing process that would make SOEs broadly economical. NanoOpto’s nano-manufacturing technologies, which include proprietary nano-imprint lithography techniques, are the first to achieve this. The resulting communication components on a chip manufactured in volume have revolutionary potential for the industry.”

“NanoOpto’s nano-fabrication capability supports our SOE device platform technology and enables us to readily add significant new features, functionality, and properties to many of today’s standard optical functions and rapidly prototype new capabilities,” stated Barry Weinbaum, NanoOpto’s CEO and President. “NanoOpto’s high volume manufacturing capability offers our customers and partners the ability to readily meet the demand for highly differentiated, SOE-enabled, integrated optical components.”

About NanoOpto
NanoOpto Corp. is applying proprietary nano-optics and nano-manufacturing technology to design and make components for optical networking. Based on years of research, the company’s technology allows orders of magnitude more rapid prototyping, higher performance and lower overall system cost. Both on its own and with corporate partners, NanoOpto will use subwavelength techniques to produce better conventional optical components and also to create new classes of integrated components. The company’s development of patented nano-imprint lithography techniques forms the basis for high volume manufacture at its facility in Somerset, New Jersey. The company has received financial backing from leading venture capitalists.