Quanlight, the LED startup company that emerged from the laboratories of Charles Tu, an electrical engineering professor (and Associate Dean) at the Jacobs School (photo above left), made its way to the New York Times today.
Quanlight's chief technical officer is Vladimir Odnoblyudov (photo above right), who earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering in 2006.
Below is a bit of the New York Times story by James Flanigan whose column about small-business trends in California and the West appears on the third Thursday of every month.
Blackbird invested $1 million two years ago in Quanlight, essentially backing the invention of Vladimir Odnoblyudov, an electrical engineer from Russia who came to the University of California, San Diego, for his doctorate.
Mr. Odnoblyudov, working with an engineering professor at the university, Charles Tu, developed a semiconductor for light-emitting diodes that provided greater stability for red light, a major need in liquid-crystal displays. Quanlight, with Mr. Senturia as chief executive and Mr. Odnoblyudov as technology officer, raised $3 million last year to develop the invention under license from the university. The process is less expensive than current technology, Mr. Senturia said, “but for red light, stable is more important than cheap. Quanlight’s red is wonderful for backlight on L.C.D. television.”
