Iris Light Technologies

Iris Light Technologies is a United States deep-tech company, based in Chicago, Illinois, that develops opto-electronically active nanomaterials and 'photonic inks' designed to make light-emitting and light-detecting components integrable with standard silicon semiconductor manufacturing. Its flagship material platform, marketed as NanoBLACK™, consists of tunable photonic inks that can be engineered to different 'colors' — that is, different emission and absorption wavelengths — so that on-chip lasers, LEDs and broadband photodetectors can be produced within existing silicon photonics workflows rather than through complex bonding and heterogeneous assembly. The company positions itself at the materials layer of the photonics value chain. Silicon photonics has long been constrained by the difficulty of integrating active devices — lasers and long-wavelength photodetectors — directly onto silicon; conventional approaches rely on wafer bonding and pick-and-place assembly that add cost, complexity and scalability limits. Iris Light's answer is a materials-based one: process-compatible nanomaterial inks that drop into existing fabrication lines, promising faster prototyping, higher yields and easier scaling from lab to fab. The company describes a vertically integrated approach spanning materials, devices and systems. Iris Light's product and application interests include integrated nanomaterial photodetectors with broadband performance from the visible into extended short-wave infrared (SWIR), black phosphorus — a layered two-dimensional semiconductor whose direct band gap can be tuned by layer thickness — and nanomaterial SWIR image sensors built on CMOS-compatible, non-toxic materials. Target applications named by the company include machine vision, medical imaging, quality sorting and defense. Iris Light Technologies originated as a spinout from Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University, and was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) deep-tech entrepreneurship program. It is a privately held company and is not listed on a public exchange. The company works collaboratively with engineering teams to move photonic innovation from laboratory research into production environments.

Iris Light Technologies emerged from research at Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University, where its founding technology — opto-electronically active nanomaterials formulated as printable, process-compatible 'photonic inks' — was developed. The company is described as a spinout of those two institutions, placing its origins in the U.S. national-laboratory and university deep-tech ecosystem around Chicago, Illinois. Its early development was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) program, a deep-tech entrepreneurship initiative hosted at Argonne that helps laboratory-derived technologies move toward commercialization. This backing provided the company with a bridge from fundamental materials research to product development. The technical problem Iris Light set out to solve is a long-standing bottleneck in silicon photonics: silicon is an excellent waveguide material but a poor light emitter, so integrating active devices such as lasers and long-wavelength photodetectors onto silicon has traditionally required complex bonding and heterogeneous assembly. Those methods add cost and complexity and constrain scalability. Iris Light's approach replaces assembly-driven integration with a materials-driven one, using tunable nanomaterial inks that can be deposited within existing silicon manufacturing workflows. From that materials foundation, the company built out a vertically integrated roadmap spanning materials, devices and systems. Its NanoBLACK™ photonic ink platform is presented as the core enabling technology, with device-level products including integrated nanomaterial photodetectors offering broadband performance from the visible into the extended short-wave infrared, and nanomaterial SWIR image sensors built on CMOS-compatible, non-toxic materials. The company also works with black phosphorus, a layered two-dimensional semiconductor whose direct band gap can be tuned by layer thickness to cover the visible through infrared spectrum. Iris Light markets its technology against application areas including machine vision, medical imaging, quality sorting and defense, and emphasizes collaborative development with engineering teams to accelerate the transition 'from lab to fab.' The company is privately held, based in Chicago, and continues to develop its nanomaterial and photonic-ink portfolio for scalable silicon photonics and infrared imaging.

• Technology originates from research at Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University; company formed as a spinout of the two institutions.

• Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) deep-tech entrepreneurship program.

• NanoBLACK™ tunable photonic ink platform developed for process-compatible integration with silicon manufacturing.

• Product portfolio extended to integrated nanomaterial photodetectors and nanomaterial SWIR image sensors.

Materials-layer enabler for scalable silicon photonics: process-compatible photonic inks that integrate on-chip light sources and infrared detectors into mainstream semiconductor manufacturing.

• NanoBLACK™ tunable photonic inks

  Opto-electronically active nanomaterial inks engineered for seamless integration with silicon manufacturing workflows; tunable to different wavelengths for on-chip lasers and LEDs at production scale.

• Integrated nanomaterial photodetectors

  Broadband photodetectors spanning the visible to extended SWIR; scalable, compact and silicon-compatible.

• Nanomaterial SWIR image sensors

  Image sensors extending imaging from the visible to the extended short-wave infrared using CMOS-compatible, non-toxic materials.

• Black phosphorus (BP)

  A layered two-dimensional semiconductor whose direct band gap can be tuned by layer thickness, enabling broad spectral coverage from the visible into the infrared.

1. 1Iris Light - Nanomaterials Enabling Scalable Silicon Photonicsirislighttech.com
2. 2About - Nanomaterials Enabling Scalable Silicon Photonicsirislighttech.com
3. 3Iris Light Technologies (United States) - Wikidatawikidata.org