By John Woodford

In the academic world, scientific research and business are often stereotyped as separate and occasionally antagonistic enterprises: Research is pure and selfless in its pursuits, while business is sullied and selfish.

But in reality, academic and business endeavors are productive activities that often use the same ingredients and share the same concerns despite differences in emphases and objectives. Research is like making cream: It's very enriching to our lives. Applying that research to broader uses in a profit-oriented market is like making milk.

The institution that best fosters cooperation between producers of cream and milk is the research university. The story of Steven L. Williamson, president of the Ann Arbor-based Picometrix company, illustrates how breakthroughs in scientific research can translate not only into new industrial techniques, but even into new industries.

Williamson was a university-based academic researcher in lasers for 15 years before he started his own company two years ago. It all began in the laser (or ultrafast optical electronics) laboratories directed by Gerard A. Mourou, professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering. Mourou brought Williamson and other members of his research lab to Michigan from the University of Rochester in 1988 and established the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) in the Institute for Science and Technology on the North Campus.

In 1990, in recognition of Mourou's leadership in the field, the National Science foundation (NSF) made the Center one of the nation's 25 NSF Science and Technology Centers. CUOS received a grant extendable to 11 years that accounts for some $30 million in funding, after which time, like the other NSF centers, it will find new funding, move into its parent university or transform itself into something else.

No lab in the world produces lasers that pulsate faster than Mourou's and his team of 50 scientists and graduate students. This year, in fact he received the 1995 Wood Prize of the Optics Society of America for "introducing the revolutionary concept of chirped pulse amplification for laser systems to boost peak power to unprecedented levels." The CUOS can generate laser pulses so fast that at first the available photodetectors couldn't time them below 10 picoseconds (a picosecond is on trillionth of a second).

The detectors work by converting the optical pulses into electrical signals, so they can be measured and controlled. Mourou's lab needed detectors that could measure pulses separated by hundreds of femtoseconds. So Williamson developed one. ('Femto-' is a numerical prefix derived from a Scandinavian word for 'fifteen'; a femtosecond is 1/10'⁵, or one quadrillionth, of a second. There are as many femtoseconds in a second as there are seconds in 32,000,000 years).

Mourou predicts ultrafast optics will advance, if not revolutionize, such fields as eye surgery, fiberoptics, high-energy physics and manufacturing. But these practical applications will require an even greater array of measuring and control devices than the one Williamson made for the CUOS lab.

"While at the University, I attempted to transfer our newly developed optoelectronic technology to commercial users. I was mostly unsuccessful in this endeavor, and during the past two years I figured out why," Williamson says. "Our mission at the University, to advance ultrafast science, had little commercial appeal outside our own small research community. There were those exceptions where the paths for research and product development aligned, but even in these instances, the research was often either too far advanced or not sufficiently baked, to get industry's attention.

"The development and marketing of a new product can easily cost 10 to 20 times more money than was spent on university-sponsored research, so there is little room for mistakes, certainly not in the small to medium sized companies that are the most likely to risk commercializing new technology. We are now seeing a greater effort on the part of the University to help close this gap between basic and applied research."

After working with the technology for 15 years, Williamson decided in 1993 that it was time to risk acting on his belief in it. Because he had developed the pico-speed photodetector at U-M, he patented it under the U-M Technology Management Office, and then relicensed it from the University. Then he founded Picometrix, to develop these and other ultrafast optoelectronic devices. He'd done well making cream; now it was time to deliver milk.

Williamson credits Mourou with "going beyond the call of duty" to accommodate what began as a one-man fledgling business inside the Center. "After he shielded me for a while, the NSF program made his support of such start-ups more official," Williamson says. Technological transfer is part of the NSF funding mandate, permitting industrial firms to associate with the NSF Centers and use experimental space, an arrangement that gives interested academic researchers a chance to explore the feasibility of transferring research findings into commercial ventures. (Three other Michigan companies also have spun off from CUOS. See technological transfer story.)

Williamson now has four other former CUOS scientists in Picometrix. "I didn't raid the Center. Gerard's team is made up of scientists who are researchers at heart, while mine is more interested in commercial applications. Soon after starting Picometrix, I partnered with Robin Risser, who is our CEO. Rob knows the business of business inside and out. Having someone with his skills is critical for any new company."

Although Williamson will continue to rent microfabrication lab space from the University to take advantage of the facilities and "tremendous intellectual climate," Picometrix will relocate this summer.

"Not everyone is cut out for this risk," he emphasizes. "It took us $500,000 to develop our ultrafast photodetector. Next we'll make a device that faithfully measures that electrical signal. This country has primed the pumps in ultrafast laser technology for 10 years. Now it's time to use this knowledge base for everyone's benefit."

Where will the impact be made? "Maybe in the fields of medicine and transportation," Williamson says, "but certainly ultrafast technology will play an increasing role in optical communications. Regardless, Picometrix wants to be positioned to develop and manufacture ultrafast optoelectronics for existing and future industries alike."--MT