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II-VI Incorporated designs, manufactures and markets optical and electro-optical components, devices and materials for precision use in infrared, near infrared, visible light and x-ray/gamma-ray instruments and applications. The Company's infrared products are used in high-power carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers for industrial processing worldwide. II-VI is also developing and marketing solid-state x-ray and gamma-ray detector products for the nuclear radiation detection industry. II-VI was founded in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania with two employees in 1971. Its mission to provide critical, high technology parts for the rapidly growing laser and electro-optics industries is now carried out from manufacturing and sales locations in Pennsylvania, Florida, Singapore and China and sales offices in the UK and Japan. Current annual sales exceed $60 million.
The Army, Navy, Air Force, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded II-VI twelve SBIR contracts between 1984 and 1996. Projects ranged from developing a technique for producing lower defect optical coatings for use in high energy lasers to developing new fluoride-based laser host materials for next generation solid-state lasers. Two SBIR contracts aimed at the development of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) for infrared focal plane array applications have led to a larger DARPA program called Infrared Materials Producibility (IRMP). The Company's CZT advancements have spurred a new business venture into room temperature, CZT radiation detectors, which is already generating sales of $3-4 million annually.
For the past decade, about 25 percent of II-VI's revenues have been generated from SBIR-related product developments. Though all such products have had military applications, commercial sales generate, on average, 75 percent of the sales of these SBIR-related products. Low defect infrared optical coatings are critical to the performance of the industrial CO2 lasers used in the manufacture of automobiles, steel office furniture and machine tools; as well, they are important in military night vision systems. Fluoride laser crystals are incorporated into lasers used on assembly lines to mark semiconductor devices or inscribe date codes on products; they are also used as calibration sources for sensors on missiles and to generate jamming codes for infrared countermeasure technologies. The Company's CZT-based technologies are used to precisely guide fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles; commercially they are used during breast cancer operations to trace the spread of malignancy into the lymph system and in automobile factories to provide real-time thickness measurements of paint on car bodies. Sales of SBIR-related products have totaled more than $63 million since 1987 and will likely reach $20 million during the coming year. The Company's strong growth is reflected in its employee count which has expanded from 120 in 1984, when it entered the SBIR program, to its current 700 as an SBIR graduate.
Carl Johnson
Tel. 724/352-4455
Fax. 724/352-5299
Website: http://www.ii-vi.com
