Millstone River Photonickers

Millstone River Photonickers is an informal affinity association of those individuals associated with the development of semiconductor diode laser technology at RCA Laboratories and its successor organization Sarnoff Corporation, as well as companies and government or university groups which have grown out of the RCA Laboratories' optoelectronics tradition.

RCA Laboratories, located on ca. 300 acres along the Millstone River in Princeton, NJ, is one of several organizations that, in 1962, simultaneously performed the historic demonstration of near-100% internal quantum efficiency in the conversion of electron-hole pairs to photons. The others were Texas Instruments, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, General Electric, and IBM.

RCA Laboratories was the organization to develop liquid phase epitaxy, the dominant form of epitaxial crystal growth enabling the development of high performance diode lasers in early years. (It has now been supplanted by molecular beam epitaxy and metallorganic chemical vapor phase deposition.)

RCA Laboratories demonstrated the very first gallium nitride based blue LEDs in the early 1970s. These were the forerunners of solid-state lighting which is poised to revolutionize lighting efficiency world wide in the next decade.

RCA Laboratories and successor organization Sarnoff Corporation today makes a unique claim as the longest-continuously operating industry R&D facility in the field of diode laser science and technology. It has specialized in government-sponsored R&D, including flying the first laser in space onboard a NASA Gemini flight in 1967.

Other Individual Affiliations

Along with the enviable history of RCA Laboratories and Sarnoff Corporation in semiconductor diode lasers, numerous spin-off and daughter companies have been founded by Sarnoff personnel.

Optoelectronics companies founded by, or with key staff being among, RCA Laboratories/Sarnoff Corporation's optoelectronics personnel include the following: Alfalight, Arradiance, Bridgelux, Epitaxx, Innovative Photonic Solutions, Laser Diode Inc., Lytel, Medeikon, Nanogen, Nanotrope, PD-LD, Photodigm, Princeton Lightwave Inc., Princeton Optronics, Sensors Unlimited Inc., and Trumpf Photonics. Several of these organizations have since been incorporated as part of larger companies. Industries served include medical, telecommunications, night vision, manufacturing, displays, and solid state lighting.

Some organizations which have employed or have been led by Millstone River Photonickers are Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Motorola, AmberWave, Lumileds, Applied Materials, Hewlett-Packard, Judson Infrared, Newport, Applied Optoelectronics, IRE-Polus Group (IPG), U.S. Army Night Vision Laboratory, University of Colorado, Carnegie Mellon University, Rider University, Ohio University, Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University, Drexel University, Pranalytica, Suzmar, Warburg Pincus, and GHO Ventures.

The Commercial Spirit of the Millstone River

The Millstone River lends its historical commercial spirit to the R&D mission performed at RCA Laboratories in Princeton. For, the R&D performed at RCA Laboratories was always focused on commercial applications in distinction to that of other major R&D institutions, including corporate R&D institutions. Many non-photonic breakthroughs were achieved along its banks, including the invention of CMOS. Of course, CMOS is the basis for essentially all computer chips manufactured today.

In earliest colonial times as land routes began to supplant sea shipping, commerce between the emerging centers New York and Philadelphia was carried by stage coach along a direct route from South Amboy to Bordentown. Much later that route became a railroad. A series of New Jersey towns still extant sprouted up along the stage coach route, including South Amboy, Sayreville, South River, Spotswood, Helmetta, Jamesburg, Cranbury, Hightstown, Windsor, Robbinsville, and Bordentown. In general, the stage coach took a bee-line route, straight as the crow flies, between the Raritan Bay at South Amboy and the Delaware River at Bordentown.

As the country grew and its economy began to thrive, large buoyant barges supported by water on canals emerged as much more suitable for heavy shipping. Unlike the stage coaches, however, routes for canals were obliged to follow the most level land -- riverbeds. Hence the importance of the Millstone River which provides a north-south waterway through New Jersey connecting the two great cities of Philadelphia and New York.

The Millstone River is an important tributary of the Raritan River. The Raritan River empties into the Raritan Bay, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean. The Raritan Bay is contiguous to New York Harbor and separates The New York City Borough of Staten Island (Richmond County) from Central New Jersey along with the Arthur Kill a more narrow channel of water between Staten Island and New Jersey.

As the Raritan River flows eastward towards Raritan Bay, it joins the Millstone River flowing north in the vicinity of Bound Brook, NJ. The Millstone River traces an arc through several New Jersey Counties, originating in Monmouth County and flowing more-or-less west through Mercer County, then northwest through Somerset County, then northward towards Bound Brook.

The uniqueness of the Millstone River is highlighted by the following geographical fact: There are no NATURAL waterways that approach the Delaware river basin south of the Millstone River which flow from a northerly direction. This is evidenced by the bend taken by the Delaware river at Trenton and Bordentown. At Trenton, the Crosswicks Creek flows westward into the Delaware River from New Jersey. There are several other creeks which, similarly, flow westward from New Jersey into the Delaware River farther south of Trenton.

The Delaware and Raritan Canal was constructed along the Millstone and Raritan Rivers. In Lawrenceville, NJ, at a site known as Bakers Basin today located along U.S. Route 1, the canal makes the few mile remaining connection into Trenton, the state capital, and then to the Delaware River.

Hence the Millstone and Raritan Rivers enabled the major shipping route between New York and Philadelphia in the early 19th century. From New York, of course, good could be shipped north along the Hudson River and Erie Canal to upstate New York, and thence to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other Great Lakes States upstream of Niagara Falls.

The Olsen farm, situated along the Millstone River where it crosses was sought and eventually purchased by RCA Corporation in the late 1930s.