Staff Report
Published Nov. 18, 2009

Clemson University has raised $4 million in public and private funding to create an Optoelectronics Research Center of Economic Excellence in the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Telecommunications companies Comporium and PalmettoNet donated $1 million each to match funding from the state, the university announced Tuesday.

“Optoelectronics positions Clemson, its students and our state for a bright future in a host of new technologies and applications that converge with communications,” said Bryant Barnes, president and CEO of Rock Hill-based Comporium.

The optoelectronics field focuses on improvement of the devices, systems and protocols used in high-speed communication networks, but the research could find other applications as well. The Upstate Alliance, for example, just cited optoelectronics as a key component to the advanced materials industry, one the alliance said is positioned for significant growth in the Upstate.

“Optoelectronics are everywhere,” said Clemson President James F. Barker. “They are found in lasers, television and computer screens and in communication, medical and defense systems. To see this technology advanced at Clemson University is an honor and we are very grateful to Comporium, PalmettoNet and the state of South Carolina.”

The new Center of Economic Excellence will be supported by the PalmettoNet Endowed Chair in Optoelectronics and the Comporium Fund for Excellence in Optoelectronics. The center will strengthen the research program in the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies and will be located along with the center and the electron microscope facility at the Advanced Materials Research Laboratory in Anderson County.

Comporium is the second-largest telephone exchange company in South Carolina and the 16th-largest in the nation.

Columbia-based PalmettoNet provides fiber-optic broadband capacity to the secondary and tertiary markets of the Carolinas. Its founding members include Comporium and other telephone companies in the state that joined forces with the goal of offering their customers and interexchange carriers the most advanced telecommunications technology available.

The S.C. General Assembly established the Centers of Economic Excellence Program in 2002, and it is funded through South Carolina Education Lottery proceeds.