SpectraSensors to expands into optical networking

SpectraSensors (Pasadena, California) received $4 million in equity financing from Forrest, Binkley & Brown, a venture capital firm headquartered in Newport Beach, California and The United Company located in Bristol, Virginia.

SpectraSensors produces fiber optic telecommunications components and laser-based gas sensing systems.
"The funds will be used for expanding the manufacturing and marketing of our gas sensor products and to develop an absolute wavelength reference product and a widely tunable laser for optical communications," states SpectraSensors co-founder Dr. Randy May. Prior to founding SpectraSensors, Dr. May was Research Scientist and Principal Investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where NASA and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization originally funded development of this technology.

SpectraSensors' widely tunable laser technology provides a variety of wavelengths from a single laser, eliminating the need for massive inventories of specific wavelength lasers. The wavelength reference product allows the widely tunable laser to be set to a specific communications channel. A DWDM system packs multiple wavelengths into a single fiber.

Presently, the market for optical networking components is $17.5 billion, and is estimated to grow to over $30 billion by 2003 according to the IGI Group (Information Gatekeepers Group), a telecom information portal based in Boston, Mass.

Edited by Maeve McKenna
Assistant Editor, Photonics Online