News: Optoelectronics
7 August 2026
Former Coherent CEO Chuck Mattera joins Uviquity as strategic advisor
Uviquity of Raleigh, NC, USA – a venture-backed start-up founded in 2022 that is pioneering integrated photonics, developing photonic integrated circuits (PICs) on a proprietary aluminium nitride (AlN) platform for quantum and ultraviolet applications – says that Dr Vincent D. (Chuck) Mattera Jr, founder & CEO of Avalanche Thinking Inc and former chair & CEO of Coherent Corp, has joined it as a strategic advisor as it scales its AlN photonics platform and accelerates commercialization.
“Chuck has spent his career identifying foundational technologies early and transforming them into global businesses,” notes Uviquity’s CEO & co-founder Scott Burroughs. “We believe integrated AlN photonics can become a foundational platform technology serving quantum systems, advanced sensing, and future deep-ultraviolet applications. Chuck’s experience scaling technology companies, building strategic customer relationships, and creating the partnerships and ecosystems required for long-term market leadership will be invaluable as we move from demonstrated results to product in customers’ hands,” he believes.
Picture: Vincent D. (Chuck) Mattera Jr.
“Throughout my career, I have been drawn to technologies that will underpin growth markets and are capable of redefining industries rather than just incrementally improving existing products,” says Mattera. “Uviquity has developed a remarkable integrated AlN photonics platform with the potential to unlock capabilities that existing photonics technologies cannot easily achieve across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared spectra,” he comments. “What excites me most is the opportunity to help Uviquity build a business that can transform breakthrough science into enduring industrial leadership. I look forward to working with Scott and the team as they build a scalable photonics platform serving multiple strategic markets from a common semiconductor foundation.”
Mattera joined II-VI Inc in 2004 and served as CEO from 2016 to 2024. Across those two decades, the company grew from roughly $150m in annual revenue to more than $5bn, and he led its transformation from an engineered materials company into a global leader in materials, lasers and photonics. He oversaw dozens of acquisitions, including Finisar and Coherent Inc, following which II-VI adopted the Coherent Corp name in 2022. Earlier in his career, Mattera spent two decades at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, and Agere Systems, overseeing the development and manufacture of semiconductor lasers. Following his retirement from Coherent, he founded Avalanche Thinking.
A photonics platform spanning the deep ultraviolet to the infrared
Uviquity fabricates photonic integrated circuits on aluminium nitride (AlN), whose properties are well matched to quantum systems. Its ultrawide bandgap keeps it transparent deep into the ultraviolet. Furthermore, it is intrinsically non-linear, electro-optically active, and strongly piezoelectric. A single chip can therefore route light with low loss, convert it between wavelengths, modulate and switch it at high speed, and provide acousto-optic control and tuning — a combination no other integrated platform offers, over a spectral range no other material can reach. Uviquity claims to hold the shortest-wavelength second-harmonic-generation result demonstrated in AlN to date, first published at SPIE Photonics West 2026 in January, and has more than 20 patents pending.
Uviquity is commercializing its AlN photonics platform across several markets:
- Quantum. Atomic clocks, quantum sensors, and trapped-ion and neutral-atom systems depend on narrow-linewidth light at specific ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, supplied currently by complex rack-scale laser systems built from hand-aligned mirrors and free-space optics. Uviquity’s platform addresses these wavelengths from the deep ultraviolet through the infrared, bringing frequency conversion, routing and heterogeneously integrated laser gain onto a single wafer-scale chip. Work in this area is advancing through research collaborations and early customer programs focused on atomic clocks, quantum sensing, and next-generation quantum computing architectures.
- Sensing and analytics. Uviquity’s first commercial products are deep-UV laser modules, based on photonic integrated circuit chips, for advanced spectroscopy and analytical instrumentation. Its lead product, announced in May, is said to be the world’s first chip-scale laser emitting at 229nm, delivering collimated, narrow-linewidth deep-UV output for applications including Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy. The modules serve instrument developers in semiconductor inspection, precision metrology, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical production, petrochemical processing, environmental monitoring, and defense. Sampling to OEM partners begins in fourth-quarter 2026, providing the initial commercialization pathway for the broader AlN photonics platform.
- Additional applications. The same AlN platform also enables far-UVC disinfection and other wavelength-specific photonic systems under development.
Uviquity recently entered Phase II of its joint development agreement with BluGlass Ltd, covering continued development of its heterogeneously integrated PIC platform, wafer and chip processing, packaging development, and laser integration.
Just as silicon photonics is transforming data-center interconnects, integrated photonic platforms capable of generating, routing and converting light across a broad spectral range are emerging as foundational infrastructure for quantum systems, advanced sensing, and precision measurement.
BluGlass secures AUS$1.4m Phase II contract under JDA with Uviquity
Uviquity gains $6.6m seed funding to develop far-UVC technology for human-safe photonic disinfection
