A Brief History
Third Floor Materials, Inc. was founded in early 2016 as a spin out of North Carolina State University by Edward Sachet, Jon-Paul Maria and Christopher T. Shelton.
The three founders, two former graduate students and their thesis adviser, saw an opportunity to commercialize an enabling material that was discovered as part of Sachet’s PhD-thesis. The material possesses an unprecedented combination of electrical and optical properties enabling a new light-matter interaction in the infrared.
Based on proprietary materials, the company is developing a technology for algorithmic infrared spectroscopy. Beyond this beachhead opportunity, Third Floor Materials is well positioned for growth in the burgeoning infrared markets with funded research and development into optical components for specialized IR applications.
The Founders
Christopher T. Shelton is the Chief Financial Officer and a senior scientist at Third Floor Materials. He is responsible for process development, test device fabrication and characterization. Dr. Shelton has substantial experience in microfabrication for both MEMS and logic technology from prior employment at Intel and Hewlett-Packard. He has co-authored 10 peer-reviewed publications and has been granted 2 US patents for MEMS devices and thin film adhesion technologies.
Edward Sachet is President and principal scientist of Third Floor Materials. He is responsible for device growth and FDTD simulations as well as materials characterization. Dr. Sachet led the fundamental infrared plasmonics research and the development of novel materials for infrared optoelectronics and spearheaded the field of mid-infrared plasmonics in conductive metal oxides. He has co-authored 22 scientific publications and is the named inventor on all patents pertaining to the company’s technology.
Jon-Paul Maria is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Maria has been running a university research group with an overarching focus on oxide electronics, functional oxides, integration science, and structure-processing relationships, largely in thin film structures. Maria has over 240 publications dealing with structure-property-processing relationships in inorganic materials.
Partners
Since its incorporation, Third Floor Materials has partnered with government agencies, universities and private businesses to advance its technology and to provide services.