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Wow what a great response from Alan. It was pretty nice of him to take the time to address that article. It's also a huge relief to know that the Rice advance is not a threat to Lightwave's planned SLM.
Thanks for sharing inversor!
If they want to keep the price above $1 to meet any cash requirements for a potential merger then they will have to release news soon and if they want to do it before the end of the year there's really only 4 weeks left for them to do it.
With regard to all the other projects and devices being developed I'm starting to think that it will take another 3-4 months for them to get close to demonstrating anything. It seems like they are waiting for University of Colorado to figure out how to coat the devices and who knows how long that will take. Also, they have to figure out the coating before they can coat the LSS devices and probably the LSS Indigo testing coupons as well since we still don't know if the LSS has taken over the Indigo testing yet.
I understand the underpromise/over deliver tactic but it would be nice to know with clarity what steps they are at right now and what steps come after. That doesn't mean that they would have to give us timeframes but it would help to know how much more legwork needs to be done before they have anything to show.
So does anyone know how PPHM plans to regain compliance with NASDAQ price per share requirements?
Will it be through a reverse split or is it likely that they'll wait to see if their upcoming trial results are positive and move the share price back above a dollar??
Any thoughts on this?
TIA
We may have just lost our SLM advantage. Might send this to Lightwave for comment:
phys.org/news/2012-11-antenna-on-a-chip-rips-fantastic.html
New research by the Rice University lab of Qianfan Xu has produced a micron-scale spatial light modulator (SLM) like those used in sensing and imaging devices, but with the potential to run orders of magnitude faster. Unlike other devices in two-dimensional semiconducting chips, the Rice chips work in three-dimensional "free space."
Xu and his Rice colleagues detailed their antenna-on-a-chip for light modulation this week in Nature's open-access, online journal Scientific Reports.
The manipulation of light has become central to the information economy. Think about light-reflecting compact discs and their video variants and all the ways lasers are used, from sensing to security to surgery. Light carries data through optical fibers for telecommunications and signals on the molecular scale as photonics techniques improve. Light-emitting diodes power television displays (for viewers clutching infrared remotes) and are beginning to replace the inefficient light bulbs in homes.
But in the computer space, light has been bound and gagged by two-dimensional circuitry, tied to waveguides that move it from here to there, Xu said. He and his colleagues point out in the new paper that 2-D systems fail to take advantage of "the massive multiplexing capability of optics" made possible by the fact that "multiple light beams can propagate in the same space without affecting each other."
The researchers see great potential for free-space SLMs in imaging, display, holographic, measurement and remote sensing applications.
Simply put, the Rice team's microscopic SLM chips are nanoscale ribs of crystalline silicon that form a cavity sitting between positively and negatively doped silicon slabs connected to metallic electrodes. The positions of the ribs are subject to nanometer-scale "perturbations" and tune the resonating cavity to couple with incident light outside. That coupling pulls incident light into the cavity. Only infrared light passes through silicon, but once captured by the SLM, it can be manipulated as it passes through the chip to the other side. The electric field between the electrodes turns the transmission on and off at very high speeds.
Individual SLMs are analogous to pixels, and Xu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, sees the possibility of manufacturing chips that contain millions of them.
In conventional integrated photonics, "You have an array of pixels and you can change the transmission of each pixel at a very high speed," he said. "When you put that in the path of an optical beam, you can change either the intensity or the phase of the light that comes out the other side.
"LED screens are spatial light modulators; so are micromirror arrays in projectors, in which the mirrors rotate," he said. "Each pixel changes the intensity of light, and you see an image. So an SLM is one of the basic elements of optical systems, but their switching speed is limited; some can get down to microseconds, which is okay for displays and projection.
"But if you really want to do information processing, if you want to put data on each pixel, then that speed is not good enough." Xu said the Rice team's device "can potentially modulate a signal at more than 10 gigabits per second.
"What we show here is very different from what people have been doing," he said. "With this device, we can make very large arrays with high yield. Our device is based on silicon and can be fabricated in a commercial CMOS factory, and it can run at very high speed. We think this can basically scale up the capability of optical information processing systems by an order of several magnitudes."
As an example, he suggested the device could give the single-pixel camera in development at Rice – which at the beginning took eight hours to process an image – the ability to handle real-time video.
"Or you could have an array of a million pixels, and essentially have a million channels of data throughput in your system, with all this signal processing in parallel," he said. "If each pixel only runs at kilohertz speeds, you don't get much of an advantage compared with microelectronic systems. But if each pixel is working at the gigahertz level, it's a different story."
Though Xu's antennas would not be suitable for general computing, he said, they could be capable of optical processing tasks that are comparable in power to supercomputers. "Optical information processing is not very hot," he admitted. "It's not fast-developing right now like plasmonics, nanophotonics, those areas. But I hope our device can put some excitement back into that field."
Interesting post Buzz. After that it makes sense why Lightwave is doing everything in it's power to get it right the first time (including taking all the time they need).
The way that the holidays fall this year it looks to me like there's 3.5 to 4 weeks of work left after Thanksgiving before Lightwave would shut down for the year. Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year so if staff/management (assuming the majority of employees are Christian) need to travel then they have the weekend immediately before or the last couple days of the previous week to reasonably get it out of the way without being pressed for time. The week of Christmas and the week of New Years are most likely shut down for such a small outfit though.
Once we hit January 2013 it will have been about a year since they first discovered/announced Indigo. Hopefully most of the characterization will be done by then??? Asked the company about whether the Indigo recipe still needed to be refined like Perk NR and Perk and was told that the structure of the Indigo material was different than perk but wasn't given any more detail. Not sure if that means yes or no, oh well. Can't wait to hear that this stuff is in devices (annnd outperforming everything on the market, knock on wood!). Consensus on the board seems to be that we will see a "business combination" prior to year's end which could be pretty exciting as well.
Time to hurry up and wait...
Gates, what I think he is alluding to is the SPIE conference (on Feb 16th I believe?). That's just my guess though. Don't have a clue if Lightwave will have anything to demonstrate by then or if that is what X was actually referring to.
Something that did change in the 10-Q was that the SLM project with Boulder Nonlinear Systems will continue "into" the first quarter of 2013. Before we were just told that it would continue "through" 2012. If they bothered to change that then they may have intended to maintain their projection of demonstrating a bench top prototype telecom modulator in the "near term".
One thing that I have picked up on in their PRs is that they like to subtly emphasize LONG term shareholder value and making LONG term value a priority. I don't think that it necessarily means that we are a LONG way away from share price appreciation but it does seem like they have a lot of work to do with University of Colorado and they haven't mentioned any NEAR term milestones recently.
Here are some timelines from the 10-Q, not that we haven't already seen most of them.
Telecom Modulator (multiple variables):"is subject to the successful characterization of those materials both on a stand alone basis and in a modulator design and will be pushed out to at least the fourth quarter of 2012." - page 38
"We intend to have a working bench-top prototype in the near future. " - page 42
Spatial Light Modulator:"This research and development program continues through 2012 into the first quarter of 2013. " page 38
Another interesting tidbit:"Our objective is to be a leading provider of proprietary technology and know-how in the photonic device markets.In order to meet this objective, subject to successful testing of our technology and having available financial resources, we intend to:....Expand our new state-of-the-art development, testing facility into a potential manufacturing facility." page 41
It was nice of him to respond. Too bad he couldn't disclose when he expects that the results will be in and for what.
With regard to the financing done earlier this year for $2.5 million, when does the lockup on those shares end?
TIA
There's still time F2. Historically they've put out at least one PR in December from what I can recall. I'm anxious for some more info too but who knows when it will come.
Hopefully the share price stays over a dollar so they can keep raising money. With the new salaries and equipment/lab space their burn rate is probably much quicker than in years past. Will be interesting to read the Q and find out how long they expect their cash will last.
LOTS going on at University of Colorado at Boulder it seems. Anyone think there's a possibility that they'll have any devices to demonstrate by the SPIE conference in February? Would be nice to give them something to talk about!
That Apple comment and reply made me smile. Great to hear that they keep up with these things and take them seriously.
Thanks for taking the initiative to get in touch with management and for posting the replies!
I hear you Joe. I think a year from now we'll all finally be where we thought we'd be years ago with a double digit share price.
In order to see movement in the share price I think we need to demonstrate some really good working prototypes which is why I hope we don't have to re-design anything now that they've gained the additional knowledge on Perk NR (and possibly Perk as well at this point). I expect we'll see our first working prototype(s) in Q1 2013 unless we are waiting on final Indigo characterization and University work.
Great, thanks elichen. If you don't mind please let us know what they respond, if at all.
I still think this is incredibly positive. I was just considering the possibility that now that they understand the structure of Perk NR (and possibly Perk too) that they might have device design flaws in their internal plans like they did with Perdix. For the record I don't think that is the case, I just consider all possibilities after having been invested here for the past 4 years. I only meant that I hope we don't have to put our own internal device designs on hold for university work again because as we know it can be a long wait with competing priorities.
Wow talk about exciting. If our materials aren't a big part of those projects I would be VERY surprised, but that's just my opinion. Excellent find Gates. I agree with whoever said its normally hard to connect dots with our company but for this it seems almost a certainty. (Knock on wood)
Gotta wonder if Lightwave will discuss any of this in the near future. The immediate start date is great to see as it seems like there is a palpable sense of urgency and excitement about the projects. Assuming they're involved it's nice that Lightwave won't have to pay for it all out of their own pocket as well.
Hopefully this doesn't mean they've hit a snag in their internal device development efforts (including with BNS) or will have to slow down while they split bandwidth between internal and external projects.
Please do, I have not sent it to them. Doesn't look like anyone else has either.
Natcore needs to start making faster progress. It seems like almost every day there are more and more articles about new solar tech being developed.
Check out this article that came out today. Somebody should send this to the company as there may be some valuable information that they could use for/with their own black silicon tech:
http://phys.org/news/2012-11-team-side-illuminated-ultra-efficient-solar-cell.html
"The new cell architecture developed at the David Ben-Gurion National Solar Research Center at BGU can exceed an ultra-efficient 40 percent conversion efficiency with intensities equal to 10,000 suns."
Does anyone have an idea what the market is like for Spatial Light Modulators? Is this a billion dollar plus market that we're looking at? Seems to me like it would be very big and if we could build an affordable and significantly better SLM using Perk that we would be golden due the numerous products that it could enable and/or enhance.
Would it be too far out there to think that other companies would try to take over Lightwave after demonstrating an SLM if it were order(s) of magnitude better than existing tech as planned/hoped???
Things are finally starting to get exciting again. Under promise, over deliver? Hope so...Looking forward to the 10-Q and the next PR.
F2 I'm also looking forward to the 10-Q but have no clue what the pros/cons of initiating a "business combination" before or after a 10-Q would be although I'd assume they'd rather execute after the Q is out. I'm curious to see if they have updated any of the timelines in reference to development/completion of working modulators or other devices..
I've had those concerns as well but I remember from the ASM that they mentioned one of the benefits of their potential business combination would be that the private company is profitable and has products already and that Lightwave has access to funding through LPC. Since their deal with LPC is based on share price I imagine that it would be null and void if they went private so I don't think that they plan on going that route.
Let's see here...Just some thoughts today after thinking about the last PR...So they hired Babu who started August 1st and it took less than 3 months to clean up Perk NR to 98+% purity and now they are "working hard" on regular perk. Over the process they must have learned a few things along the way AND they didn't have an in-house testing facility in place so they probably had to outsource (at least some of) the testing. Now that they've gone through one material and have in-house rapid testing capabilities I'd have to imagine it won't take as long to get the formula for regular Perk nailed down too. I'm thinking/hoping before the end of 2012 could be reasonable. We have 2.5 weeks until Thanksgiving and after that there are 4 straight work weeks until all work stops for the holidays when starting on 12/24 there will most likely be a 2 week lull in actual work at the company. Once they get regular Perk down I'd guess they'll be able to start making some devices to play around with (maybe an SLM?) while they're working out the kinks on Indigo. Hopefully they'll have the dye loading and polling process finalized soon too because it sounds like they have the thin film process all worked out with Mickleson. My unqualified guess is that they are practicing the dye loading and polling with pure perk crystals so that when Indigo is worked out they'll already be prepared for the next step of coating the LSS devices.
Skidos,
From what I remember of the shareholder meeting they said that Mickelson from Colorado is helping them develop the thin film coating process first (since they need extremely thin films) and then after they gain some experience they will bring it in house to LWLG so they can do it themselves. From the recent PR it sounds like they might have already brought it in house and are practicing til perfect so they get the LSS devices right.
On another note, Gate, if the business combo was with Luxtera or Kotura what do you think that would do for our share price???
Interesting thoughts Gates. Either would be pretty incredible, and especially Luxtera in my mind although I find them to be slightly out of our league at this point in time unless a JV was established. Then again, I don't know much about these types of situations and what would be a realistic possibility. Very excited to see what kind of "combination" is made and who it is with.
Going back to the last PR on 9/17 after reading today's news makes me excited when I re-read this part about SLM's and Chuck Greenlee:
Charles Greenlee commented, "The objective of this project was to prove that organic nonlinear EO polymers can be used to build spatial light modulators that will vastly outperform current liquid crystal devices.
"I am extremely excited to be working with Perkinamine™ based materials. Unlike the polymer used in the research project, Perkinamine™ based materials have previously demonstrated excellent thermal stability and high electro-optical effects needed to operate at extremely low voltages. They also possess other unique electro-optical characteristics that make them particularly well suited for this kind of application."
Tom Zelibor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lightwave stated, "We have made steady progress to improve our ability to consistently reproduce our materials while we complete the outfitting of our new testing and design facility. This will open the way for Chuck to get our materials into working devices. His vast experience with spatial modulators will complement our previously announced external design effort currently in process with Boulder Nonlinear Systems."
Think it's safe to assume that Chuck is now capable of getting their materials into working devices?
That's a good question, not sure. On top of that, now that we are getting the higher % purity are we also getting higher performance specs out of the materials as well? If we are, maybe materials that they thought weren't good enough for certain applications now would be well-suited for them (ie - regular Perk variations)
I think you could be right. I also have to wonder how long it will take them to get confident enough to coat the LSS devices (and their own) too. If not before year end, then I'd think Q1 2013 should be a pretty exciting time.
Looking forward to the next PR..
F2,
Are you thinking prior to year end for the acquisition/business combination?
Also, have they already told us what materials will be used in the SLM??? If we could make one of those sucessfully and cheaply I think the rocket would finally leave the launch pad. That would be HUGE imo.
That is excellent to hear. However, it bothers me that they did not mention Indigo in that paragraph:
"we have now been able to achieve greater than 98% purity of Perkinamine NR. We have never before achieved this level of purity, which has impeded our ability to obtain the repeatability required for the commercialization of our materials.
We are now able to produce extremely pure crystals of our material, which has helped us ascertain the precise molecular structure of Perkinamine NR and enabled us to perform detailed X-ray studies. We are in the finishing stages of completing structural analysis now and are working hard to accomplish the same with regular Perkinamine."
Maybe they will focus on Indigo once they finish their analysis of Perk NR and regular Perk? Maybe finishing those two first will make analyzing and reproducing Indigo easier? They could have mentioned something about it at least, instead of leaving us wondering.
I don't see any yet??? Can you please post?
TIA
How's the weather down in Delaware today? Hope you all are safe and fortunate enough to avoid any property damage. Anyone driven by the Lightwave office to see if there's been any damage?
If we finish above $1 today we will have finished above $1 for the past 12 days. Starting Monday I'd have to imagine they'll be grabbing $200K from LPC every 5 business days if we continue to remain over $1. Is this how they plan to keep dilution down with an acquisition? Raise money from LPC?
We'll find out how much they raise in 2-2.5 weeks when the next 10-Q comes out. Hope we hear something positive from the company before then. It's been a LONG last two months and an even LONGER last several years while waiting for this investment to bear fruit. I wish they'd just build an initial SLM or Telecom modulator device to showcase so they have something to tout for when the material recipes finally get all worked out. They always claim something is holding them back though.
Sorry for the negativity, just frustrated.
If the timeframe is 12 straight days then my mistake, for some reason I had thought it was a 5 day period. In that case then we'd have to wait until the week of the 29th to direct more purchases by LPC which would hopefully time out nicely with some news from the great pumpkin.
I don't know about anyone else but I'm starting to get really anxious for the last week of October. IMO we'll get news that week or the week afterwards at least with regard to the completion of the testing facility and maybe another update on how the materials reproducibility is progressing.
Here's hoping that they give us lots to be thankful for by Thanksgiving if we don't hear anything before the end of October.
Does anyone think there will be a struggle to keep the share price above $1 tomorrow? I'm really curious to see if there will be any attempt to keep the share price down so Lightwave can't tap LPC.
I can't remember if there are any additional requirements to meet in order to tap LPC for cash, but after Wednesday if the share price is still over $1 then it will have been 5 straight days and Lightwave can bank another $200K. By that math I suppose they could raise another $800k in total prior to the next 10-Q if the share price remains above $1. Will be interesting to see what they report.
Personally, I think m.barryville is full of it and is probably selling into this price rise or setting a short position. Remember k.wordsworth predictions and the rapid price drop afterwards? There's been a myriad of other posters claiming that the rocket is just about to liftoff and never once was it remotely true. A lot can happen in 2 months and if everything went our way I think m.barryville's predictions might not be too far fetched but its unrealistic to expect everything to come together perfectly during that time even though we'd all prefer to hope so.
I agree with propjoe and wouldn't take anything that anyone (especially on the yahoo board) says too seriously except for the company....which we are due to hear from soon since its been 4 weeks since the last "PR". At the very least, we are 4 weeks from the next 10-Q.
I just went through a reverse split with another company and was wondering what the chances are that LWLG would pull a reverse split so they could tap LPC and pay for the acquisition? Might just be a little paranoid at the moment...
Nice to see the patent grant will be final by the end of October. Guess we will be getting our monthly update sometime in the next couple of weeks?
Surprised at how well the price is holding up so far, knock on wood.
Buzz - my guess is that no they can't, at least not yet. Hopefully Lightwave can beat them to the punch.
Using light to control light: Engineers invent new device that could increase Internet download speeds
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-device-internet-download.html
A team of scientists and engineers at the University of Minnesota has invented a unique microscale optical device that could greatly increase the speed of downloading information online and reduce the cost of Internet transmission.
The device uses the force generated by light to flop a mechanical switch of light on and off at a very high speed. This development could lead to advances in computation and signal processing using light instead of electrical current with higher performance and lower power consumption. The research results were published today in the online journal Nature Communications. "This device is similar to electromechanical relays but operates completely with light," said Mo Li, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. The new study is based on a previous discovery by Li and collaborators in 2008 where they found that nanoscale light conduits can be used to generate a strong enough optical force with light to mechanically move the optical waveguide (channel of information that carries light). In the new device, the researchers found that this force of light is so strong that the mechanical property of the device can be dominated completely by the optical effect rather than its own mechanical structure. The effect is amplified to control additional colored light signals at a much higher power level. "This is the first time that this novel optomechanical effect is used to amplify optical signals without converting them into electrical ones," Li said. Glass optical fibers carry many communication channels using different colors of light assigned to different channels. In optical cables, these different-colored light channels do not interfere with each other. This non-interference characteristic ensures the efficiency of a single optical fiber to transmit more information over very long distances. But this advantage also harbors a disadvantage. When considering computation and signal processing, optical devices could not allow the various channels of information to control each other easily…until now.
The researchers' new device has two optical waveguides, each carrying an optical signal. Placed between the waveguides is an optical resonator in the shape of a microscale donut (like a mini-Hadron collider.) In the optical resonator, light can circulate hundreds of times gaining intensity. Using this resonance effect, the optical signal in the first waveguide is significantly enhanced in the resonator and generates a very strong optical force on the second waveguide. The second waveguide is released from the supporting material so that it moves in oscillation, like a tuning fork, when the force is applied on it. This mechanical motion of the waveguide alters the transmission of the optical signal. Because the power of the second optical signal can be many times higher than the control signal, the device functions like a mechanical relay to amplify the input signal. Currently, the new optical relay device operates one million times per second. Researchers expect to improve it to several billion times per second. The mechanical motion of the current device is sufficiently fast to connect radio-frequency devices directly with fiber optics for broadband communication. Li's team at University of Minnesota includes graduate students Huan Li, Yu Chen and Semere Tadesse and former postdoctoral fellow Jong Noh. Funding support of the project came from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
That would be nice, but remember at U of AZ they work with Alex KY Jen a lot and he is still producing new polymer materials. From the way it seems that we were treated by Norwood and his group (delays, lack of urgency) I'd be more likely to believe that it isn't our material. Besides, our agreement with the U of AZ was over after 7/31 of this year. If a university were to make a device with our material it would probably be at U of Colorado after what we heard from the ASM.
REALLY looking forward to getting our material in some devices, hope its not too far off!
More on Black Silicon and Solar Cells:
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-solar-cells-black-silicon.html
Solar cells convert three-quarters of the energy contained in the Sun's spectrum into electricity – yet the infrared spectrum is entirely lost in standard solar cells. In contrast, black silicon solar cells are specifically designed to absorb this part of the Sun's spectrum – and researchers have recently succeeded in doubling their overall efficiency.
The Sun blazes down from a deep blue sky – and rooftop solar cells convert this solar energy into electricity. Not all of it, however: Around a quarter of the Sun's spectrum is made up of infrared radiation which cannot be converted by standard solar cells – so this heat radiation is lost. One way to overcome this is to use black silicon, a material that absorbs nearly all of the sunlight that hits it, including infrared radiation, and converts it into electricity. But how is this material produced? "Black silicon is produced by irradiating standard silicon with femtosecond laser pulses under a sulfur containing atmosphere," explains Dr. Stefan Kontermann, who heads the Research group "Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion" within the Fraunhofer Project Group for Fiber Optical Sensor Systems at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI. "This structures the surface and integrates sulfur atoms into the silicon lattice, making the treated material appear black." If manufacturers were to equip their solar cells with this black silicon, it would significantly boost the cells' efficiency by enabling them to utilize the full Sun spectrum.
Researchers at HHI have now managed to double the efficiency of black silicon solar cells – in other words, they have created cells that can produce more electricity from the infrared spectrum. "We achieved that by modifying the shape of the laser pulse we use to irradiate the silicon," says Kontermann. This enabled the scientists to solve a key problem of black silicon: In normal silicon, infrared light does not have enough energy to excite the electrons into the conduction band and convert them into electricity, but the sulfur incorporated in black silicon forms a kind of intermediate level. You can compare this to climbing a wall: The first time you fail because the wall is too high, but the second time you succeed in two steps by using an intermediate level. However, in sulfur this intermediate level not only enables electrons to climb the 'wall', it also works in reverse, enabling electrons from the conduction band to jump back via this intermediate level, which causes electricity to be lost once again. By modifying the laser pulse that drives the sulfur atoms into the atomic lattice, researchers can change the positions that these atoms adopt in the lattice and change the height of their 'levels', in other words their energy level. "We used the laser pulses to alter the embedded sulfur in order to maximize the number of electrons that can climb up while minimizing the number that can go back down," Kontermann sums up.
In the first stage of the project, the scientists modified the laser pulses and investigated how this changed the properties of black silicon and the efficiency of solar cells made from this material. Now they are working on using different shapes of laser pulses and analyzing how this changes the energy level of the sulfur. In the future, they hope that a system of algorithms will automatically identify how the laser pulse should be modified in order to achieve optimum efficiency. The 'Customized light pulses' project was one of this year's winners in the '365 Places in the Land of Ideas' competition; the awards ceremony is due to be held in Goslar on October 11, 2012.
The researchers have already successfully built prototypes of black silicon solar cells and their next step will be to try and merge these cells with commercial technology. "We hope to be able to increase the efficiency of commercial solar cells – which currently stands at approximately 17 percent – by one percent by combining them with black silicon," Kontermann says. Their starting point is a standard commercial solar cell: The experts simply remove the back cover and incorporate black silicon in part of the cell, thereby creating a tandem solar cell that contains both normal and black silicon. The researchers are also planning a spin-off: This will be used to market the laser system that manufacturers will be able to acquire to expand their existing solar cell production lines. Manufacturers would then be able to produce the black silicon.