March, 2010

Management Team

• Reid Rubsamen, President and CEO– A.B. Computer Science, Berkeley – M.S. Computer Science, Stanford – M.D. Stanford– Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT

• Doctoral candidate 1989 - 1991– Founded Aradigm (IPO 1996)– Founded Flow Pharma 2002– Named inventor on 65 issued U.S. Patents

Flow Focusing Technology

• Liquid guided by “lens” of gas

producing precision micro-jet

• Jet does not touch sides of the hole

• Immaculate Extrusion

Flow Focusing Technology

• Invisible “lens” of gas can be qualitatively

demonstrated experimentally

Flow Focusing Technology

• Concentric needle configuration

• Allows production of clad fiber or encapsulated microspheres– Cure early for fiber– Cure late for spheres

Flow Focusing Technology• Steady state jet

characteristics described by a formula

• Dependencies are on liquid density, gas pressure drop and liquid flow rate

• Patented Physics

Molten Material ExtrusionFiber Production

• Traditional optical fiber fabrication process

• Pre-form is mounted in a tower and heated

• Fiber is drawn down

Molten Material ExtrusionFiber Production

• No pre-form required• Core and cladding can

be co-extruded• No heat or strain introduced by

viscous fiber draw-down• Wide range of possible materials

Fiber Optic Light Transmission• Traditional approach is via total internal reflectance

(TIR)• Process is lossy and not phase preserving• Photonic bandgap (PBG) transmission allows

potentially lossless, phase preserving light transmission

• PBG fiber can be used to transmit very high energy laser light

• Short lengths of PBG fiber have been produced but no process exists for kilometer length production

• PBG fiber is very high performance with ultra low loss

• PBG fiber has specialty fiber roles e.g. can serve as a notch filter

• Blaze founder Russell described simple structures for PBG transmission

Potential Benefits of PBG Fiber

• Long Haul Fiber– << 0.1db loss/kilometer– Phase preserving– Broad band

• Specialty Fiber– Transmission of high power laser light– Passive notch filter

Potential Demand

Time

In-place internet optical backbone capacity

Internet optical backbone capacity requirement

Emergence of video-on-demand

Bandwidth

Ban

dwid

th

Time

Fiber Optic Applications

FF may be the only viable

process for mass production of low loss PBG fiber

Parallel Co-Extrusion

Simple PBG Structures Viable

rp/rc = 0.8

TE Transmittance

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50

Normalized Frequency

Tran

smitt

ance

TE Transmittance

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50

Normalized Frequency

Tra

nsm

ittan

ce

Flow Focusing Draw Tower

Flow Focusing Draw Tower

Flow Focusing Optical Team

Draw Tower Parameters

RF Heated Crucible

Tower and RF Generator

Crucible and FF Nozzle

FF Nozzle in Open Position

FF Nozzle Under Crucible

FF Nozzle In Open Position

FF Nozzle Assembly

FF Nozzle Alignment

Molten Glass In Crucible

Molten Glass Entering Open Nozzle

Hollow Core Fiber Cross SectionRandomly selected hollow fiber cross section. There are still instabilities evidentin this early draw. The ten micron diameter corehas good circularity and concentricity, but the fiber body is 10% elliptical. Several hundred metersof comparable fiber wereproduced in this experiment.

Goal

Make kilometer lengths of precision, multicore PBG fiber and test performance

Path To The GoalTask Month

21

4 6 8 10

6 7 8 9 10 11 12ApparatusImprovementsSeals and pressure

controlVibrationisolationRFinduction powersupplyMelt TemperaturepyrometerCladdingsystemInjectors

GlassSelectionTheroeticalModelingFluid modeling for injector

designFlow nozzleoptimizationPBG fiberstructure

FiberCharacterizatrionReal time dimensional

controlOpticaltransmissionMechanical andenvironmental

FeedbackControl

Program Management

MajorMilestonesImproved draw tower

completeGlass selected andformulatedFirst feedback controlled drawscompleteFirst 7 hole fiber drawn &characterizedFinal reportcomplete

Flow Focusing Patent Position