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For Immediate Release

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

NanoOpto Introduces SubWave™ Phase Management Optical Components

Waveplate “Optical Building Blocks” are the latest product realization of NanoOpto’s modular nano-optic component technology

Somerset, New Jersey. September 9, 2002. NanoOpto Corp., which is applying proprietary nano-optics and nano-manufacturing technology to design and manufacture components for optical networking, announced today availability of their newest products, the SubWave Phase Management family of optical components. This product family consists of Low Retardance, Standard, and Specialty waveplates. NanoOpto’s SubWave Waveplates address a broad range of optical component and sub-module design applications in telecommunications and data communications, including optical signal conditioning and optical switching. NanoOpto will demonstrate applications of SubWave Waveplates at the National Fiber Optic Engineering Conference (NFOEC 2002), September 15-19, in Dallas, TX. Samples will be available for customer trial this month.

NanoOpto’s SubWave Waveplate is an optical chip wherein the interaction of light with specially tailored nano-scale structures creates a phase retardance effect. By manipulation of the sizes of the nano-structures, this approach creates three classes of waveplates:

Low Retardance Waveplates. True zero-order waveplates with highly accurate retardance of l/30, 1/40, thru 1/120 of a wavelength and smaller.
Standard Waveplates. True zero-order half (1/2), quarter (1/4), and eighth (1/8) waveplates.
Custom Waveplates. True zero-order waveplates at customer selected retardance that allows accurate compensation for phase shifts in optical components.

All of the SubWave Waveplates have high optical accuracy, extremely low thermal dependence, high damage thresholds, and are available in sizes ranging from 1 square millimeter up to 10s of square millimeters. The standard device thickness is either 0.5 mm or 0.2 mm. All of the SubWave Waveplates are available in identical form factors and automated assembly operations can be readily applied.

“As a stand-alone optical component, the SubWave Waveplates deliver excellent optical performance, ease of design integration, and ease of assembly,” said Hubert Kostal, Vice President of Marketing and Sales at NanoOpto. “Equally exciting, however, is the path we are on to integrate the waveplate ‘optical building block’ with other modular nano-optics, such as our SubWave Polarization Beam Splitter, which was announced in March 2002 and is now generally available. By integrating these optical functions onto a single, cost effective, optical chip, NanoOpto will continue to reduce design, manufacturing, and overall systems costs for our customers and partners.”

About NanoOpto
NanoOpto Corp. is applying proprietary nano-optic and nano-manufacturing technology to design and make components for optical networking. Based on 20 years of research, the company’s subwavelength scale nano-optic design capability combined with nano-imprint manufacturing technologies delivers optical components that allow more rapid prototyping, higher performance, and lower overall system cost. Both on its own and with corporate partners, NanoOpto will use patented nano-optic and nano-imprint technologies to produce better conventional optical components and also to create new classes of modular, readily integrated, nano-optic components. The company has received financial backing from leading venture capitalists and is based in Somerset, New Jersey.