Laser Maker Acquires Rival

NL Nanosemiconductor GmbH announced it has acquired Zia Laser Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., for an undisclosed amount. Both companies are involved in the research and the commercialization of quantum dot semiconductor laser technology and have had a cooperative relationship in the past.

NL Nanosemiconductor supplies epitaxial wafers with quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and high-power laser modules, as well as broadband and modelocked lasers. Its headquarters are based in Dortmund and its US offices are in San Jose, Calif. The company said its long-term development focus is to improve the performance of semiconductors by delivering lasers for interchip and intrachip timing and signal distribution.

Quantum dot semiconductor laser maker Zia Laser was spun off from the Center for High Technology Materials at the University of New Mexico in June 2001. It has attracted $22 million in venture capital investments since then.

Alexey Kovsh, COO of NL Nanosemiconductor, said while quantum dot research is being carried out in labs around the world, it hasn't yet reached its full potential. “Combining the two leading quantum dot companies’ separately developed wafer growth expertise, laser manufacturing techniques as well as product and IP portfolio will further accelerate the exploitation of quantum dot lasers’ unique properties to deliver fundamental performance improvements in existing applications as well as enabling completely new applications. In fact, cooperation already underway has so far yielded outstanding results which have exceeded expectations,” he said.

"Today we see the clear potential of quantum dot lasers to enable new applications -- providing high-speed optical interconnect between chips as well as delivering optical timing within the next generation of high-performance ICs such as microprocessors, graphics and memory chips," said Jürgen Kurb, CEO of NL Nanosemiconductor. "In addition, applications such as optical imaging, medical treatment and multilambda optical communications will benefit from the unique advantages of quantum dot technology, particularly the broad gain spectrum and unique wavelength range of 1.1 -1.3 µm.”

For more information, visit: www.nanosemiconductor.com