Cascade Licenses Lucent Technology

Cascade Technologies, a Strathclyde University (Glasgow, Scotland) spinoff specializing in gas, emissions and explosive detection lasers, has signed a licensing deal with Lucent Technologies. Cascade said the agreement enables it to manufacture and distribute QCLs anywhere in the world. Terms were not disclosed. According to Lucent, the QC laser was invented and demonstrated in 1994 at Bell Laboratories by Federico Capasso, Alfred Cho and their collaborators. Irwin Norman at Strathclyde University adapted them for commercial use. Cascade uses quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) to discover, in "real time," the molecular composition of gasses and solids. The company also recently announced it is developing explosive detection technology which it said could be in use by airport security staff within two years. Cascade's technology combines QCL gas sensing techniques with "chemical fingerprinting" to detect the complex molecules in explosives. It also made a recent £4 million (about $7.6 million) deal to monitor BP's refinery emissions over the next three years, and it opened a 6000-square-foot office and development facility this week at Stirling University Innovation Park in Sterling, Scotland.