The Centre for Integrated Photonics (CIP) at Martlesham Heath
has moved into the microfluidics business and is manufacturing on
its own production lines in East Anglia.
“We’re taking orders,” Stephen Holton, CEO of
CIP, told Electronics Weekly, “they could be for
very large volumes.”
The microfluidic devices have 250µm wide channels made in
silica through which a fluid can be run. “Photonics is used a
lot in diagnostic equipment,” said Holton. Chemical companies
use the devices for high throughput analysis.
With a change of materials technology the devices have the
potential, because they are inexpensive to make in volume, to
provide consumer diagnostic kits. “They would have to go into
polymer for that to happen,” said Holton.
CIP has put out a capability data sheet so that customers can
have their particular requirements incorporated.
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| Neville Reyner, chairman, Stephen Holton,
CEO, and Neil Weston, v-p |
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The microfluidic devices are currently all being made at
Martlesham Heath. CIP has its own III-V fab running mostly indium
phosphide wafers for its other standard products such as
super-luminescent diodes (SLDs), optical regenerators,
semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) which can switch 40Gbit/s
plus and electro-absorption modulators (EAMs) for the 40Gbit/s
market. “The market’s moving to 40Gbit/s, and ours are
the best performing devices on the market,” said Holton.
The CIP came into existence a couple of years ago after Corning,
the US glass company, pulled out of the R&D facility it had
established, at a cost of some £40m, at Martlesham Heath.
The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) took over the
centre and kept it intact as a going concern, helped by R&D
contracts from BT (£256,000), the Engineering Physical
Sciences Research Council (£1.24m), and the EU Framework VI
programme (€400,000). There was also backing from the
DTI.
The CIP then started developing its own, standard products which
it is now marketing.
www.ciphotonics.com