Backplane growth too slow to save opto firmHarry YeatesEdinburgh optical communications start-up Terahertz Photonics has been placed in administration.
The firm, which was developing materials for optical backplanes and telecoms components, had signed up to a £1.5m DTI-funded LINK project to develop 10Gbit/s polymer interconnects.
Terahertz was spun out of Heriot Watt University in 1998 to commercialise materials and processes for optical waveguides and components. Its two technologies were Truemode polymers, for applications such as fibre-to-the-home and optical backplanes, and a process known as Solica for low-cost deposition of silica on silicon.
In January last year the firm received second round funding worth £6m from venture capital backers Add Partners and Scottish Equity Partners. And in October it sold its coatings business to Helia Photonics in order to concentrate on its optical products.
At the time chief technology officer Frank Tooley told EW: "We're enabling people to make optical backplanes for the first time. It's a market that is newly required and is growing from zero." It would appear it did not grow fast enough to support the firm. Terahertz joins fellow Scottish optical technology failure Essient Photonics, a Glasgow University spin out that went under in May.
The DTI said it wanted to save the LINK Storlite project, to which Terahertz was supplying its polymer technology. "Our view is, we try to be as flexible as possible to keep the thing alive," said the programme's Steve Woodard.