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NLM Photonics raises $1M from Japanese companies

NLM Photonics' Kevin O’Malley works at a probe station
NLM Photonics' Kevin O’Malley works at a probe station that measures electro-optic activity. (NLM Photonics Photo)

Seattle-based NLM Photonics says it has raised $1 million in new funding to advance commercialization of its hybrid electro-optic modulation technology, which is meant to open the way for semiconductors that can handle more data with less power.

The funding round was led by two Japanese companies: Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., also known as TOK, and Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.

TOK is a world leader in manufacturing materials for advanced electronics, and in supplying critical goods for the semiconductor industry. Hamamatsu is a major player in the market for photonics components — and was involved in a previous investment round for NLM. The TOK investment deal also includes collaboration on developing shelf-stable inks incorporating NLM’s proprietary materials.

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IonQ advances next generation of quantum computing

IonQ ion trap
Chip-sized ion traps are key components in IonQ’s quantum computers. (IonQ Photo / Kai Hudek)

Maryland-based IonQ is expanding the commercial availability of its next-generation Forte quantum computer — and ramping up its research and production facility in the Seattle area to work on the next, next generation.

Forte is expected to bring the quantum frontier closer to the point that customers can start running real-world applications rather than merely experimenting with quantum capabilities, said Chris Monroe, co-founder and chief scientist at IonQ.

“We’re not talking a decade away here anymore,” he told me.

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Small businesses win NASA’s support for space tech

Illustration: Power beaming system at work in lunar crater
One grant would support the development of a lunar power distribution system. (NASA Illustration)

NASA’s latest round of small-business grants will support aerospace-related technologies ranging from a new kind of spacecraft docking mechanism to a power beaming system suitable for use on the moon.

Those are just two of the projects receiving Phase I grants from the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, also known as SBIR and STTR.

The grants will go to 300 proposals from 249 small businesses and 39 research institutions across the country. Each proposal team will receive $150,000 to establish the merit and feasibility of their innovations, representing a total agency investment of $45 million. SBIR Phase I funding supports projects for six months, while the STTR Phase I funding is meant to cover 13 months of work.

“NASA has a key role to play in growing the aerospace ecosystem in our country,” Jenn Gustetic, director of early stage innovation and partnerships for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release. “Through these early-stage small business awards, we are inviting more innovators into this growing arena and helping them mature their technologies for not only NASA’s use, but for commercial impact.”

Gynelle Steele, deputy program executive for NASA’s SBIR/STTR program, said the grants are meant to “nurture pioneering ideas from a diversity of innovators across the country that may not attract the initial private industry funding needed to thrive.”

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Stratolaunch hits milestone in its hypersonic quest

Stratolaunch's Roc airplane releases TA-0 test vehicle in mid-flight
Stratolaunch releases the TA-0 separation test vehicle from its Roc airplane. (Stratolaunch Photo / Ethan Wagner)

California-based Stratolaunch, the venture created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, released a separation test vehicle for the first time this weekend during an experimental flight of the world’s largest airplane.

The event marked a significant milestone in Stratolaunch’s quest to create an air-launch system for rocket-powered hypersonic vehicles.

The May 13 outing was the 11th flight test for Stratolaunch’s flying launch pad — a twin-fuselage, six-engine airplane with a record-setting 385-foot wingspan. The plane is nicknamed Roc in honor of a giant bird in Middle East mythology.

Roc carried the Talon-A separation test vehicle, known as TA-0, during three previous test flights. But this was the first time TA-0 was released from Roc’s center-wing pylon to fly free. The release took place during a four-hour, eight-minute flight that involved operations in Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Western Range, off California’s central coast.

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Northwest teams win federal funding for tech innovations

OSU prof Pallavi Dhagat in the lab
Oregon State University Professor Pallavi Dhagat works on semiconductor research in the lab. (OSU Photo / Johanna Carson)

Four Pacific Northwest public-private partnerships have won support from the National Science Foundation through a $43 million nationwide program to promote regional technology innovations.

The NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program is aimed at ensuring that the U.S. remains in the vanguard of technological competitiveness. Forty-four teams in all were selected to receive up to $1 million in Type-1 funding each for up to two years to develop program proposals in their chosen fields.

Programs that are selected for Type-2 funding could eventually receive up to $160 million over the course of 10 years.

“These NSF Engines Development Awards lay the foundation for emerging hubs of innovation and potential future NSF Engines,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said today in a news release. “These awardees are part of the fabric of NSF’s vision to create opportunities everywhere and enable innovation anywhere. They will build robust regional partnerships rooted in scientific and technological innovation in every part of our nation.”

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Echodyne and Supernal join forces on safety for air taxis

Illlustration: Supernal eVTOL in flight
Supernal's eVTOL vehicle

Kirkland, Wash.-based Echodyne, a next-generation radar platform company backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has forged a partnership with Supernal to enhance the safety of that company’s air mobility system.

Supernal, a Washington, D.C.-based subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group, says it’s making a minority investment in Echodyne as part of the deal — but the amount of the investment was not immediately disclosed.

The newly announced strategic agreement adds to Supernal’s collaborations with Microsoft, BAE Systems, Honeywell and other companies on an air transport system that could go into service by as early as 2028.

Supernal is developing an electric-powered, vertical-takeoff-and-landing air vehicle, also known as an eVTOL, along with the ground-based systems required to support short-range, taxi-style flights. For example, the company’s website suggests that its eVTOL could carry passengers between Seattle and Tacoma in 25 minutes.

The precise timetable for commercial operations is likely to depend not only on technological developments, but also on the Federal Aviation Administration’s establishment of a regulatory system for advanced air mobility.

Under the terms of the partnership, Echodyne’s radar system could be used for in-flight situational awareness as well as for ground-based tracking installations around vertiports and flight corridors.

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Fiction Science Club

How quantum tech could change everything everywhere

Illustration combining 1660 star atlas and picture of quantum computing hardware
Quantum computing could change our perspective on the cosmos. (Illustration: Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1660 / Microsoft, 2022)

What does quantum computing have in common with the Oscar-winning movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once”? One is a mind-blowing work of fiction, while the other is an emerging frontier in computer science — but both of them deal with rearrangements of particles in superposition that don’t match our usual view of reality.

Fortunately, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has provided a guidebook to the real-life frontier, titled “Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything.”

“We’re talking about the next generation of computers that are going to replace digital computers,” Kaku says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “Today, for example, we don’t use the abacus anymore in Asia. … In the future, we’ll view digital computers like we view the abacus: old-fashioned, obsolete. This is for the garbage can. That’s how the future is going to evolve.”

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12 companies collaborate with NASA on tech frontiers

Rocket module sitting outside Blue Origin facility in Florida
One of the modules for the New Glenn rocket sits outside Blue Origin’s Florida factory. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is among 12 companies chosen to collaborate with NASA on new technologies that could become part of future missions to the moon and Mars.

Blue Origin has signed up to work with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama on friction-stir additive manufacturing. It’ll also partner with Langley as well as Ames Research Center in California to work on a metallic thermal protection system.

“We’re pleased to have been selected by NASA to partner on developing these technologies,” Blue Origin said in an email.

NASA says Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin and the other 11 companies will advance capabilities and technologies related to the space agency’s Moon to Mars Objectives. The work will be done under the terms of unfunded Space Act Agreements, following up on an Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity issued last year.

That means no money will be transferred between NASA and its partners. Instead, NASA will make its in-house expertise available to help the companies develop products that the space agency could procure for future missions.

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Could the Pacific Northwest become ‘Quantum Valley’?

Physicists adjust quantum hardware at PNNL
Christian Boutan and Jihee Yang adjust quantum hardware at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (PNNL Photo / Andrea Starr)

California’s Silicon Valley may rule the roost for internet startups, and Kendall Square in the Boston area may set the pace for the biotech industry, but could the Pacific Northwest leap into the lead for quantum computing?

Experts who are exploring one of the computing world’s hottest frontiers say there’s a chance that Seattle could become the heart of a “Quantum Valley” — but it could take years for the promise of quantum computing to pay off.

“I’d say we’re on the order of a decade plus before we start to see this start to really materialize,” said Louis Terminello, associate laboratory director for physical and computational sciences at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Terminello is among the authors of a recent commentary calling for increased public investment to solidify the Pacific Northwest as home of the nation’s top regional cluster for research and development in quantum information science — in short, Quantum Valley.

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Azure Quantum joins the hunt for new fuel-cell catalysts

A hydrogen-powered car fills up at a refueling station
A hydrogen-powered car fills up at a refueling station. (Johnson Matthey via YouTube)

Chemists at Microsoft Azure Quantum are teaming up with Johnson Matthey, a British-based clean-tech company, to identify new types of catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells.

The project demonstrates how quantum information science could help reduce the automobile industry’s carbon footprint and address the challenge of climate change.

“So far, Johnson Matthey has seen a twofold acceleration in quantum chemistry calculations, and we’re just getting started,” Nathan Baker, senior director of partnerships for chemistry and materials at Microsoft, said today in a blog posting. “Both companies recognize that the discoveries needed to create a zero-carbon future will require significant breakthroughs in chemical and materials science, and are enthusiastic about the difference we can make in the world together.”

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