By Ben Sosne
At is core, the Berkshire Innovation Center was designed to drive economic development by convening industry, academia, and government. We wholeheartedly believe that a dynamic partnership between this triumvirate can spur innovation, address complex challenges, and propel private and regional economic growth.
Institutes of higher education develop talent, generate groundbreaking ideas, and conduct cutting edge research, all of which can empower industries to stay at the top of their respective fields. When properly partnered, industry gains access to this work and talent and can apply it to enhance products, streamline processes, and created new markets. Both startup companies and established firms can leverage this expertise to push the boundaries of innovation and breed high-value jobs.
Government, meanwhile, acts as a facilitator. Effective governmental partners provide the necessary frameworks, policies, and funding to encourage this collaboration. Through research grants, tax incentives, student support, and other strategic initiatives, government can level the playing field of industries of all sizes and enable them to engage with academic institutions in a mutually beneficially way. Government-backed initiatives can target key sectors that are identified as critical growth opportunities and that align with state and national priorities.
In our first few years at the BIC, we’ve seen the effectiveness of the industry-academia-government collaboration play out again and again, most notably with the launch of the BIC Manufacturing Academy. The Manufacturing Academy is an industry led training program that was jointly developed by BIC member firms and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was funded primarily by the US Department of Commerce, carrying out federal policies intended to spur expansion of manufacturing in regions like Pittsfield. The program serves established firms in our region and is taught by BIC staff, MIT researchers, and industry veterans. This partnership is not only making an impact locally, MIT is taking the learnings and considering other regions in the US where a similar program might be deployed.
With the academy successfully launched, the BIC is thrilled to be serving as the connective tissue on another major industry-academia-government collaboration that will have a significant impact on Western Massachusetts. The project, which will accelerate the development and adoption of emerging metalense technology, is a partnership between researchers at UMass Amherst and BIC industry member Electro Magnetic Applications, Inc. (EMA), and is funded with significant support from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts via the Mass Tech Collaborative.
Metalenses
In the realm of optical technology, metalenses have emerged as a groundbreaking frontier, a cutting-edge innovation that is poised to reshape the landscape of next-generation devices. Indeed, in 2019, the World Economic Forum named metalenses ond of the top 10 emerging technolgoies.
Metalenses are extremely thin optical structures – approximately 1/50th the thickness of a human hair – that combine multiple functions of traditional and bulky curved optics into an ultracompact package. Unlike traditional lenses that rely on natural materials like glass, metalenses are crafted from metamaterials - engineered substances with properties not found in nature. These materials are meticulously designed with structures that allow for precise control and manipulation of light at the nanoscale.
Metalenses are key to enabling a wide range of next-generation products in consumer health care, aerospace, and defense markets. Examples of technologies that can be dramatically improved with metalenses include virtual reality and augmented reality (AR/VR) smart glasses, automobile Lidar, cell phone camera lenses, night vision, terrain mapping, and facial recognition. Massachusetts is uniquely positioned to lead this industry transformation. The Commonwealth possesses a powerful consortium of legacy precision optics companies, academic centers of excellence in emerging optics designs (spawning innovative startups), and an internationally unique test and simulation capability for various harsh environments.
Leveraging Additive Manufacturing
Traditional lenses, which are curved and bulky, have been in use for hundreds of years. Ultrathin metalenses – flat lenses that can deliver advanced capabilities and better performance – have been developed over the past decade. Until now, these flat lenses have been manufactured in semiconductor foundries using a subtractive manufacturing in which the patterns are carved out of a layer of material. Construction of the foundries, and the manufacturing process itself, are both extremely expensive.
The grant from the Mass Tech Collaborative, a $5 million dollar award announced in October, will enable UMass-Amherst to establish an open-access Advanced Optics Fabrication and Characterization Facility on its campus. This new facility will utilize additive manufacturing - 3D Printing - to produce metalenses. The UMass team is led by Dr. James Watkins, Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering. As Watkins explains it, compared to the traditional subtractive approach, additive manufacturing is far more efficient in terms of cost, materials, and energy usage. It can also be done in smaller, less expensive facilities. Indeed, as a state-funded open-access facility, the UMass lab will be accessible to any companies that can leverage this resource to support advances in this sector.
Electro Magnetic Applications
While UMass will host the open-access research and production facility, EMA, which specializes in the testing and design of materials used in the space environment, will build out and operate a sister lab at the Berkshire Innovation Center which will help researchers and companies prove out their products.
The EMA portion of the project is led by Principal Scientist Justin McKennon. McKennon and his team are keenly aware that the development and commercialization of a new technology such as this requires the ability to prove that it can work in harsh environments. With EMA’s testing and simulation capabilities, the lab they establish at the BIC will play an important role in helping researchers and companies test their innovations. From a practical standpoint, any researcher or private firm working to advance this new and revolutionary sector, will have good reason to be spending time in Pittsfield.
The potential impact of this cannot be overstated. According to the Donahue Center at UMass, there are 40+ private companies in Massachusetts specializing in advanced optics and photonics with over 3,000 combined employees and more than $750 million in annual sales. Most of these are small or medium sized enterprises and many of them are poised to grow exponentially over the next decade as the technology continues to advance.
The BIC
The BIC will not only house the EMA lab, but we will also continue to serve as the bridge between industry, academia, and government. We will build awareness around the technology, the project, and the resources available. We will help both established firms and new firms access and leverage the technology, and we will work with other educational partners such as Berkshire Community College and Springfield Technical Community College on professional development and eventually on the incorporation of hands-on learning and training. Establishing a workforce capable of working in these emerging areas is fundamental in the long-term success of EMA and UMass’ work.
Obviously, this also presents an unbelievable opportunity to strengthen and grow our relationship with UMass-Amherst, the Commonwealth, and local industry partners like EMA. Hopefully the success of this project continues to fuel opportunities for additional transformative collaborations between industry, academia, and government.