| Graduate students Anthony
Hoffman, Scott Howard, and Kale Franz, affiliated with the NFS-funded MIRTHE
(Mid-InfraRed Technologies for Health and the Environment) Enginering Research
Center at Princeton have formed a start-up company called Primis Technologies.
Primis was created in January 2007 to commercialize a new generation of
low-cost, lightweight, and extremely sensitive sensors made possible by
advances in Mid-Infrared quantum cascade lasers.
Each of the three partners
brings complementary expertise to the company. Franz (who has an
NSF Graduate Student Fellowship) offers a broad engineering background,
Hoffman functions as the chief scientist, and Howard brings software modeling
expertise. The three students also do laser research for Claire Gmachl,
professor of electrical engineering and MIRTHE’s director, as part of a
separate Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant. Primis is based
on the students’ MIRTHE research.
The technology holds great
promise because the same laser can be used for a wide range of applications,
from detecting biological and chemical weapons to monitoring and diagnosing
disease. “There is this huge potential market and nobody is there to fill
it yet,” said Howard. MIRTHE allowed the students to operate the
company while they finished their graduate studies.
With MIRTHE’s help, the students
have teamed up with a group of MBA students at Rutgers, who are fleshing
out a business plan and marketing strategy for Primis. “It would be hugely
rewarding to get our technology out of the lab and into general use so
that it makes an impact on society,” said Franz. Besides, he adds, “We’re
young, and we can, and this is the time to do it.” |
