Glossary

Technical and financial terms used throughout the LWLG KB. EO polymer / silicon photonics vocabulary is dense; this page is a quick reference. Cross-linked from technical articles where the term first appears.

Physics

r33: Pockels electro-optic coefficient (in pm/V) along the principal axis. The figure of merit for an EO modulator material — higher means lower drive voltage at fixed device length. LWLG Perkinamine in-device r33: >200 pm/V at 1310 nm. NLM Selerion in-device r33: 150-550 pm/V (varies by formulation). Lithium niobate reference: ~30 pm/V.
Vπ (V_pi): Half-wave drive voltage of a Mach-Zehnder modulator — the voltage required to swing the optical phase by π radians. Lower is better. LWLG public spec: 0.5-0.7 V·mm Vπ·L (April 2026 PIC International disclosure).
Vπ·L: Vπ multiplied by device length — a length-independent figure of merit. Allows comparison across modulators of different lengths. LWLG Apr 2026: 0.5-0.7 V·mm.
Pockels effect: Linear electro-optic effect — a refractive-index change proportional to applied electric field. The physics underlying EO polymer modulators. Distinct from the (slower) thermo-optic and (asymmetric) Kerr effects.

Materials

Tg: Glass-transition temperature of a polymer. Above Tg the polymer becomes viscous. LWLG Perkinamine Tg ~185°C — comfortably above the 105-110°C operating window of CMOS BEOL. Higher Tg = better thermal stability and longer field reliability.

Process

BEOL: Back-End-of-Line — the post-transistor wafer-fabrication stages where metal interconnect and dielectric layers are deposited. Material thermal budget at BEOL is typically 250°C-400°C for short anneals. LWLG Perkinamine survives this window.
PDK: Process Design Kit — the foundry-released library of design primitives (waveguides, modulators, splitters) that designers use to lay out a photonic chip. LWLG has integrated PDKs at GF Fotonix, Tower PH18, AMF (via GDSFactory), and SilTerra (via Luceda).

Architectures

POH: Plasmonic-Organic-Hybrid modulator. Plasmonic metal structures concentrate the optical mode into a sub-wavelength volume filled with EO polymer. Polariton (now Marvell) is the leading POH commercializer; their stack uses LWLG polymer.
SOH: Silicon-Organic-Hybrid modulator. Silicon slot-waveguide architecture with EO polymer in the slot. Lower loss than POH but larger footprint.
TFLN: Thin-Film Lithium Niobate. The leading non-polymer EO modulator material currently shipping at volume. HyperLight, Smart Photonics, and others. r33 ~30 pm/V; relies on substrate-bonded crystalline LN films.
BTO: Barium Titanate (BaTiO₃). High-r33 oxide ferroelectric. Lumiphase, IBM Research are leading developers. r33 ~600-800 pm/V claimed but commercial maturity behind TFLN/POH.
InP modulator: Indium Phosphide compound-semiconductor modulator. Used in long-haul / coherent optical transport. Coherent, Lumentum, InPACT, Smart Photonics. Different physics — band-edge electro-absorption or carrier-injection — not the Pockels effect.

LWLG

Perkinamine: LWLG-trademarked family of EO polymer chromophores invented by Frederick Goetz Sr. Multiple generations (Indigo, NR, Malachite, Series-3+) with progressively higher r33 and improved photo-stability. The "thermal-first" synthesis approach gives Tg above CMOS BEOL.
Stage 1 / 2 / 3 / 4: LWLG's internal customer-progression framework. Stage 1 = exploratory engagement; Stage 2 = sample / NRE; Stage 3 = qualified design-in / pre-production; Stage 4 = commercial production with revenue. As of Apr 2026: 4 unnamed Fortune 500 customers in Stage 3 (LWLG-disclosed), >15 in Stages 1-2, zero in Stage 4 yet.
K-POD: Kit / Polymer-on-Demand process flow — LWLG's name for their device prototyping pipeline at foundries. References at Blum PIC International keynote Apr 2026.
ALD encapsulation: Atomic-Layer-Deposition encapsulation — the moisture / oxygen barrier deposited over the polymer to extend device life. LWLG's 4th-generation ALD has OTR ~1.4×10⁻⁶ g/m²/day vs ~7×10⁻⁶ for prior "gold-box" standards. Critical for Telcordia GR-468 reliability.
Stage-4 conversion: A LWLG Stage-3 customer reaching commercial production with material recognized revenue. The single most important valuation-shifting catalyst in the LWLG roadmap. Target H1 2027.

Reliability

Telcordia GR-468: Telcordia Generic Requirements for optoelectronic device reliability. The industry-standard qualification regime for long-haul photonics. LWLG passed 85/85 1000h damp-heat in Jul 2025; extended to 2000h length-swept in Apr 2026.
85/85: Damp-heat reliability test — 85°C ambient at 85% relative humidity for a specified hour count. The most-cited single failure-mode test for organic EO materials. LWLG's pass at 1000h then 2000h is the load-bearing reliability claim.

Market

TAM: Total Addressable Market. LWLG's Jan 2026 deck targets $24B 2028 TAM split $10B AI / $7B Datacenter / $7B Telecom = 234M modulators total.
SAM: Serviceable Addressable Market. LWLG Jan 2026 deck: $1.0-2.5B SAM (the slice of TAM that LWLG could realistically capture given foundry footprint, Stage-3 cohort, and reliability gating).
CPO: Co-Packaged Optics. Optical I/O integrated directly onto the same package as the switch ASIC, replacing pluggable transceivers. NVIDIA Q4 2026 CPO product launches ahead of competitors. LWLG Tier-1 #2 program targets CPO materials.
NPO: Near-Package Optics — an intermediate step between pluggable and CPO. Optics on substrate adjacent to the ASIC.
1.6T / 3.2T: Per-port aggregate bandwidth tiers. 1.6 Tb/s = 8×200G or 4×400G lanes. 3.2 Tb/s targets 2027-2028 production. The window that LWLG materials are positioned for.

Finance

ATM: At-The-Market offering. LWLG's ongoing capital-raising mechanism via Roth Capital. Apr 21 2026 amendment: $51.4M shelf, $49.3M still available.
Form 4: SEC insider-transaction filing. Filed within 2 business days of the transaction. The primary signal channel for insider buying / selling. LWLG has 219 Form 4s in archive.
13F / 13G: 13F = quarterly filing of >$100M institutional manager holdings. 13G = passive ownership of >5%. Both are filing-deadline-driven (mid-quarter filings reflect period-prior holdings).
Russell reconstitution: Annual rebalancing of the Russell 1000/2000/3000 indices. Rank Day 2026 = April 30; effective date Jun 26 2026. LWLG ~$1.91B mcap → likely Russell 2000 inclusion → passive flow buyer.