Epitactic is a materials supply company providing a platform that will accelerate the shift from electronics and optics to integrated photonics, enabling higher telecom and datacom bandwidth and computational power while reducing energy consumption.
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Larissa Little
Larissa Little cofounded Epitactic to commercialize her research into next-generation materials for integrated photonics. Her graduate work at Harvard focused on the synthesis of high-quality oxide thin films, including electro-optic and superconducting materials. Before her Ph.D., Little majored in materials engineering at Olin College of Engineering and worked at Formlabs for several years as a materials scientist.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
The accelerating demand for high-speed communication and computation worldwide is outpacing development of traditional electronic and optical technologies. Devices for telecom and datacom need to be smaller, faster, and lower power, which requires innovations in the underlying material platform in addition to device design and engineering.
Technology Vision
Much like how widespread adoption of silicon allowed integrated electronics to be used in applications of all kinds, Epitactic will drive innovation in integrated photonics by providing a material platform that is scalable, foundry-compatible, and performant. The platform, based on the material thin-film barium titanate, is especially well suited to the production of high-speed chips for the data/telecom industry, as well as for classic and quantum optical computing technologies. Epitactic leverages techniques similar to those commercialized by the semiconductor industry to produce high-quality materials.
Potential for Impact
Data centers are becoming a significant contributor to global energy consumption, a trend projected to continue as demand increases. Indeed, by 2030 communications and information technologies are predicted to consume almost 20 percent of our global energy. Epitactic’s material platform will enable wider adoption of integrated photonic devices, which consume significantly less power without sacrificing performance. Integrated photonics is a nascent commercial technology, with applications that are still being explored in quantum computing, low-power sensing, and diagnostics.