While fusion energy has received a lot of venture capital attention and has been the subject of recent photonics deals (see laserfocusworld.com/55001630 and laserfocusworld.com/55094003), photonics is also finding a role generating fuel for traditional nuclear reactors, helping to enable small modular reactors and microreactors. This month, LIS Technologies announced a $12 million Seed round led by 28 Ventures Fund to advance its laser technology for uranium enrichment. The company uses infrared wavelengths to selectively excite the U235 isotopes to separate them from other isotopes and plans to expand its operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The quantum computing hardware industry leverages photonics in several ways, including interconnecting quantum modules or directly controlling and interacting with the qubits themselves in the case of trapped ions or neutral atoms (see laserfocusworld.com/55130684). The fundamental qubit elements, however, can also be built from photonics itself. Rotonium raised a $1.1 million Seed round from Obloo Ventures and Galaxia. The Italian startup is leveraging properties of orbital angular momentum in single photons to build qubits (or even qudits), eventually hoping to get to room-temperature quantum computers. This initial funding is focused on the development of the platform in silicon photonics.
