Background

Mesophotonics Ltd was established in July 2001 to develop and commercialise planar photonic crystal technology in the fields of lasers, miniature optics, telecommunications and computing.

The company is a spin-out from the University of Southampton where a multi-disciplinary team have been conducting research in the area of photonic crystals and photonics band gaps since 1994. Academics from the Departments of Electronics & Computer Science, and Physics have collaborated on the design, fabrication and characterisation of devices which have demonstrated the potential of the technology. Operating at wavelengths ranging from the mid infrared at >4µm through to visible regions of spectrum at 700 to 400nm these devices clearly have the ability to impact all areas of photonics.

In partnership with BTG, the global technology commercialisation company, the founding team of seven and the University created and launched Mesophotonics to further develop photonic crystal devices, design products and take them to market.

The technology developed by the team allows light to be bent, routed and processed at sub-millimeter scale. This will enable multiple optical functions and complex systems to be implemented at high density on a single silicon chip, leading the way to low cost, high volume production of integrated optical devices. Additional optical devices will also be possible at efficiencies and sizes not previously achievable as photonic band gaps are used to modify fundamentally how light is generated inside photonic crystals.