by Peter Page

The vision that Congress had 20 years ago when it allowed universities to patent technology developed with federal research funds is reality at a nondescript, single-story office industrial complex in Ewing Township, N.J.

In that unremarkable building, Universal Display Corp. (UDC), a company that took root in 1994 in the laboratories of the Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials (POEM), workers are hurriedly erecting Sheetrock® walls to create another 11,000 square feet of work space at the company's Pilot Line and Development facility.

Photo by Frank Wojciechowski Greg Olsen, president of Sensors Unlimited Inc., and Janice Mahon, vice president of technology commercialization at Universal Display Corp., are two beneficiaries of the technology transfer process.

UDC's hand-in-glove working relationship with POEM has unleashed a geyser of innovation, and the company needs more room for development: the fabrication of commercial prototypes for its growing list of manufacturing and customer partners.

"The relationship with Princeton has been pivotal to the growth of this company,'' said Janice K. Mahon, UDC vice president of technology commercialization. "They are our reason for being.''

In the seven years since UDC researchers began working in the labs at POEM, the company has accumulated 400 worldwide patents, pending or issued, related to organic light emitting device (OLED) technology, Ms. Mahon said.

"Significantly more than 50 percent of our patents originate from work done at Princeton,'' she added. "It has been a very fruitful relationship.''

UDC works closely with Professor Steve Forrest and his researchers, a relationship that he says enhances both the company's commercial prospects and the education of students. Together, UDC and POEM are achieving breakthroughs in basic technology for building flat panel displays, lasers, and light generating devices. The goal is to dramatically enhance display performance with products less expensive than current technologies.

"Photonics is rich in problems and poor in solutions, so it's not hard to find material for good thesis work when you are working with companies that can see beyond the tip of their nose,'' Professor Forrest said. "The benefits are enormous for students who are exposed to industrial researchers. They see the problems industry faces, and they get immediate feedback on their ideas.''

Illustration by Ann Haver-Allen

The path from great idea to great product on store shelves is long and too arduous for most ideas to survive. Ms. Mahon described a sort of intellectual bucket brigade anchored at one end by Princeton that substitutes for the research and development departments that are too costly for all but the wealthiest corporations.

"Basically, Princeton is the 'r' and we are the 'd'," she said. "Princeton is where basic research is conducted, then we take that research and build a prototype.''

The next stage-development of the prototype into a product-is conducted under a web of licensing agreements that bind Princeton, UDC, and corporations eager for new technology.

UDC, according to its Web site, currently has strategic alliances with PPG Industries Inc. of Pittsburgh, to develop and commercialize UDC's proprietary OLED materials; a license agreement with Motorola Inc., to explore product development stemming from dozens of U.S. and foreign patents; and a development and license agreement with Aixtron AG of Germany to develop and commercialize manufacturing equipment for OLEDs based on technology originating from Princeton called Organic Vapor Phase Deposition.

The complex relationships linking researchers from universities and corporations provide lessons for students in the long haul that it takes to hammer an idea into a product, Professor Forrest said.

"It is a huge gap from the lab to a product. The more experience I get, the bigger that gap appears,'' he said.

Ms. Mahon acknowledges the arduous process of bringing technology to market, but at the same time sees the fecundity of Princeton research as the assurance that UDC will, indeed, have products, whatever the challenges.

"Princeton is the engine that fuels the pipeline of future products,'' she said.