Quintessent and IQE Establish Supply Chain for AI Optical Interconnects

Quintessent Inc., a developer of quantum dot laser technology and heterogeneous silicon photonics, and IQE plc, a global supplier of advanced epitaxial wafer products and services, have partnered to establish a large-scale quantum dot laser and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain. This collaboration, supported by purchase order commitments from Quintessent, will see IQE deliver production quantities of epitaxial wafers to Quintessent throughout 2025.

The supply of high-quality, high-volume quantum dot epitaxial wafers for laser sources and SOAs have been limited until recent advances were made by Quintessent and IQE. Those milestones have been in the works for the past decade, including research that was spun out of John Bower’s laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Transitioning the gallium arsenide-based quantum dot research to high-volume production has resulted in highly optimized and high-performing gain material on 6-in diameter epitaxial wafers that can produce several hundreds of millions of edge-emitting lasers and SOAs per year.

Quintessent closed an $11.5 million seed round last year. The company formalized a partnership with Tower Semiconductor in 2021, and in 2023, the partners claimed the first heterogeneous integration of gallium arsenide quantum dot lasers and a foundry silicon photonics platform.