Name: 4Wave
Location: Sterling
Big idea: Develops passive optical components through a thin film deposition technique called biased target deposition
Founded: 2000
Web site: www.4waveinc.com
Who's in charge: Sami Antrazi, president
Funding: 4Wave, which has been largely self-funded, is seeking investment funding. The company received a $100,000 award from the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology's Growth Acceleration Program fund and two awards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Advanced Technology Program totaling $2.5 million.
Employees: All nine of the company's employees met while working for Commonwealth Scientific. When that company was sold, they founded 4Wave. They intend to expand to as many as 60 people over the next four years.
Big-name clients: 4Wave sells to companies that make transceivers for optical equipment, including Emcore Corp., Intel Corp., E2O Communications Inc., Opnext Inc., Finisar Corp. and Agilent Technologies.
Origin of company name: "We always thought of getting into the optics business," Antrazi said, and four seemed the key number. "There are four characteristics to optics: the incident light, the standing light, the reflected light and the transmitted light. It's worked out well because our chip has four filters on it and it filters four ways."
