DATE: 3-4-04
CONTACT: Earl Wagener, (864) 650-0430
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WRITER: Sandy Dees, (864) 656-4193
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Tetramer demonstrates "exceptionally strong market potential"
PHOTONICS SPIN-OFF LIGHTS THE WAY TO NEW PRODUCTS AND JOBS
CLEMSON -- Clemson University's light-based photonics research has turned a bright idea into additional jobs, tax dollars and high value products -- earning an intensely competitive federal grant in the process.
Pendleton-based Tetramer Technologies, LLC --- a company that spun off from research conducted at Clemson --- has received a small business innovation research award from the
National Science Foundation to continue work in photonics materials research and development. The $500,000 award builds on two $100,000 grants received from the NSF small business program last year.
Photonics is the science and technology of using light particles, or photons, to carry information instead of electrons. The science is the basis for today's optical fiber, high-speed networks, the driving force behind the Internet. Photonic materials, such as those being developed at Clemson University, are projected to continue to replace electronic components over the next 10 years, creating new products worth more than one billion dollars globally.
In the coming years, photonics will become as much a part of the popular lexicon as electronics is today.
"We are delighted to have won this significant grant," said Earl H. Wagener, CEO of
Tetramer. "Phase-two funding is only awarded to a handful of companies that have demonstrated exceptionally strong market potential."
Tetramer was formed in February 2001 by professors in Clemson's Center for Optical
Materials Science and Engineering Technologies.
COMSET is the only university R&D lab in the region focused on the development of new optical materials. Their research attracted more than $13 million in sponsored research during the center's first three years. COMSET is now under consideration by the S.C. Commission of Higher Education for designation as a state center.
Wagener, a 1967 Clemson graduate in physical organic chemistry, returned to his native
South Carolina two years ago to head the company. Wagener has 33 years of new product commercialization and venture capital experience at Dow Chemical, Stepan Co. and The
ChemQuest Group Inc.
"It will provide the people, facilities and equipment to allow our company to move from the current early experimental product phase to building commercial products for sale," said
Wagener. "It also demonstrates a real example of how knowledge generated from Clemson

University's research engine can drive local economic growth."
Tetramer employs two full-time and three part-time employees and plans to expand to 20 full-time employees over the next five years.
In addition to possible jobs for Clemson's engineering graduates, the company will also have high-paying technician positions for graduates from local technical institutes.
"These are the type of jobs that will have staying power in South Carolina and not be exported elsewhere. I wish these types of jobs would have been available here when I graduated," said Wagener.
Tetramer develops photonic materials such as high-performance fluoropolymers, which, pound for pound, are worth as much as gold due to their far superior ability to transmit and interpret information versus today's copper wires. Photonic materials are used in telecommunications and integrated optics, such as computers, cell phones, television components and lasers. They could also be used in next-generation technologies such as
President George Bush's fuel cell initiative and the creation of low-cost, light-emitting diodes that could one day replace energy-wasting, fluorescent light bulbs.
"These large market applications promise significant economic growth because of their global economic attractiveness and strategic military importance to the United States," said
Wagener. "Ultimately, companies, such as Tetramer, participating in these markets will not only keep top engineering graduates in state, but also provide higher wages for the support positions needed to operate a knowledge-based company."
A recent study on the economic health of the Palmetto State found that South Carolina must redesign its business-recruitment strategy to attract and retain knowledge-based companies and high-paying jobs. The study recommended that the state develop stronger industry clusters, or networks of interrelated industries, that help create additional economic opportunity by building supplier layers.
The study identified advanced materials, a broad heading that includes photonics, as an emerging seed cluster.
In a move that could make the Upstate the epicenter of a regional advanced materials cluster,
Clemson plans to invest $70 million over the next five years to fully develop the advanced materials industry cluster. The linchpin will be a $21 million advanced materials research facility, at the Clemson Research Park, that will be anchored by what will be one of the nation's top optical materials laboratories coupled with a state-of-the-art electron microscopy facility. Clemson's nanotech-related research will also be housed there. The research facility could open as early as this summer. Clemson is also pursuing state matching funds that would help fund two endowed chairs specializing in advanced materials research.
A second photonics faculty spin-off company, Advanced Photonic Crystals, has also garnered phase-one funding and is currently under consideration for phase-two funding.
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