Former Coherent CEO Chuck Mattera Joins Uviquity as Strategic Advisor to Accelerate the Company's Aluminum Nitride Photonics Platform for Quantum and Advanced Sensing

Avalanche Thinking founder and photonics industry leader will advise Uviquity as it scales its integrated aluminum nitride (AlN) photonics platform

RALEIGH, N.C., Aug. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Uviquity, a deep-tech company building integrated photonics on an aluminum nitride (AlN) platform for quantum and ultraviolet applications, today announced that Dr. Vincent D. ("Chuck") Mattera, Jr., Founder and CEO of Avalanche Thinking, Inc. and former Chair and CEO of Coherent Corp., has joined the company as a Strategic Advisor. In this role, Dr. Mattera will advise Uviquity's leadership team as the company scales its AlN photonics platform and accelerates commercialization.

"Chuck has spent his career identifying foundational technologies early and transforming them into global businesses," said Scott Burroughs, CEO and co-founder of Uviquity. "We believe integrated AlN photonics can become a foundational platform technology serving quantum systems, advanced sensing, and future deep ultraviolet applications. Chuck's experience scaling technology companies, building strategic customer relationships, and creating the partnerships and ecosystems required for long-term market leadership will be invaluable as we move from demonstrated results to product in customers' hands."

"Throughout my career, I have been drawn to technologies that will underpin growth markets and are capable of redefining industries rather than just incrementally improving existing products," said Dr. Mattera. "Uviquity has developed a remarkable integrated AlN photonics platform with the potential to unlock capabilities that existing photonics technologies cannot easily achieve across the ultraviolet, visible, and infrared spectra. What excites me most is the opportunity to help Uviquity build a business that can transform breakthrough science into enduring industrial leadership. I look forward to working with Scott and the team as they build a scalable photonics platform serving multiple strategic markets from a common semiconductor foundation."

Dr. Mattera joined II-VI Incorporated in 2004 and served as CEO from 2016 to 2024. Across those two decades, the company grew from roughly $150 million in annual revenue to more than $5 billion, and he led its transformation from an engineered materials company into a global leader in materials, lasers, and photonics. He oversaw dozens of acquisitions, including Finisar and Coherent, Inc., following which II-VI adopted the Coherent Corp. name in 2022. Earlier in his career, Dr. Mattera spent two decades at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, and Agere Systems overseeing the development and manufacture of semiconductor lasers. Following his retirement from Coherent, he founded Avalanche Thinking, Inc.

A photonics platform spanning the deep ultraviolet to the infrared

Uviquity builds photonic integrated circuits on aluminum nitride (AlN), an ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor whose properties are unusually well matched to quantum systems. Its bandgap keeps it transparent deep into the ultraviolet. Furthermore, it is intrinsically nonlinear, electro-optically active, and strongly piezoelectric. A single chip can therefore route light with low loss, convert it between wavelengths, modulate and switch it at high speed, and provide acousto-optic control and tuning — a combination no other integrated platform offers, over a spectral range no other material can reach. The company holds the shortest-wavelength second harmonic generation result demonstrated in AlN to date, first published at SPIE Photonics West in January 2026, and has more than 20 patents pending.

Uviquity is commercializing its AlN photonics platform across several markets:

Quantum. Atomic clocks, quantum sensors, and trapped-ion and neutral-atom systems depend on narrow-linewidth light at specific ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, supplied today by complex rack-scale laser systems built from hand-aligned mirrors and free-space optics. Uviquity's platform addresses these wavelengths from the deep ultraviolet through the infrared, bringing frequency conversion, routing, and heterogeneously integrated laser gain onto a single wafer-scale chip. Work in this area is advancing through research collaborations and early customer programs focused on atomic clocks, quantum sensing, and next-generation quantum computing architectures.

Sensing and analytics. Uviquity's first commercial products are deep-UV laser modules, based on photonic integrated circuit chips, for advanced spectroscopy and analytical instrumentation. Its lead product, announced in May 2026, is the world's first chip-scale laser at 229 nm, delivering collimated, narrow-linewidth deep-UV output for applications including Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy. The modules serve instrument developers in semiconductor inspection, precision metrology, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical production, petrochemical processing, environmental monitoring, and defense. Sampling to OEM partners begins in the fourth quarter of 2026, providing the initial commercialization pathway for the broader AlN photonics platform.

Additional applications. The same AlN platform also enables far-UVC disinfection and other wavelength-specific photonic systems under development.

Uviquity recently entered Phase II of its joint development agreement with BluGlass Limited, covering continued development of Uviquity's heterogeneously integrated PIC platform, wafer and chip processing, packaging development, and laser integration.

Just as silicon photonics is transforming data-center interconnects, integrated photonic platforms capable of generating, routing, and converting light across a broad spectral range are emerging as foundational infrastructure for quantum systems, advanced sensing, and precision measurement.

About Uviquity

Uviquity is a pioneer in integrated photonics, developing photonic integrated circuits (PICs) on a proprietary aluminum nitride (AlN) platform, generating and routing light from the deep ultraviolet through the infrared on a single manufacturable chip. Its technology serves quantum systems, advanced sensing and analytical instrumentation, and other ultraviolet photonics applications. Founded in 2022 by a team of scientists, engineers, and photonics experts, Uviquity is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is backed by Emerald Development Managers, AgFunder, and MANN+HUMMEL.

For more information, visit www.uviquity.com.

About Avalanche Thinking

Avalanche Thinking builds innovation ecosystems around breakthrough technologies. Partnering with founders, leadership teams, investors, and government organizations, Avalanche Thinking combines strategic investments, advisory services, operational expertise, and long-term partnerships to transform scientific discovery into enduring industrial leadership.

Focused on semiconductors, photonics, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, advanced manufacturing, and biotechnology, Avalanche Thinking's ecosystems are accelerating transitions in computing intelligence and energy infrastructures, enabling next-generation defense and space capabilities, and advancing the convergence of digital biology and human health. By integrating foundational materials, devices, software, and manufacturing innovations, Avalanche Thinking's ecosystems build the industrial capabilities that strengthen market leadership, economic competitiveness, national security, and societal progress.

Guided by its mission to turn breakthrough technologies into enduring industrial capabilities, Avalanche Thinking brings together disruptive technology platforms and exceptional teams to spawn world-class companies and enduring institutions, laying the foundation of future prosperity.

Disrupt Now. Redefine Forever.

For more information, visit www.avalanchethinking.com.

SOURCE Uviquity Inc.