COLUMBIA, Md., June 20 -- Optical-networking startup Trellis Photonics announced that Aharon Agranat, its co-founder and director, has won the Discover Magazine 2001 award for technological innovation in communications. The Discover Awards recognize the men and women behind technologies that promise to have a revolutionary impact on society. Agranat is the inventor of electroholography, a breakthrough in materials science that uses holograms inside crystals to route information in high-speed communications networks.
    "This is an honor for Trellis Photonics and a very important endorsement of our direction -- delivering advanced communication systems based on electroholography," said Trellis CEO Timothy K. Cahall. "With Electroholography as the cornerstone of our research and development, Trellis continues to pursue a variety of potential applications for all-optical networking."
    Trellis develops and manufactures all-optical switching systems based on electroholography, which eliminates the need for data to be converted from photons, or light pulses, to electrons and back as it travels through fiber optic networks.