Bahman Taheri (pictured at left) is not an elite skier, but he’s one heck of a scientist.
And because of that, the black-diamond crowd has a new weapon to attack the mountain, no matter what the elements.
In the past, serious skiers and snowboarders had to carry two pairs of goggles to combat constantly changing light conditions on the hill. That is until Taheri’s company, AlphaMicron, created a high-tech goggle using liquid crystals that can adjust with the click of a button from a light gold (perfect for producing high-contrast in flat light) to dark gold when the sun is bright.
“The skier decides the tint,” say Taheri, AlphaMicron’s CEO. And it’s instantaneous, which is infinitely better than light-activated, or photochromic, lenses found in everyday eyewear.
Based on technology developed by AlphaMicron for the U.S. Air Force, the Uvex goggles, which sell for about $200, use a double lens with liquid crystals sandwiched in between that are instantly tinted dark with a dose of low-voltage electric current.
Back in 1997, Taheri, Tamas Kosa and Peter Palffy were researchers at Kent State University’s Liquid Crystal Institute when the military was looking for a solution for its pilot visors. The Air Force was moving toward helmet-mounted instrumentation displays and needed a visor that could adjust to various lighting conditions. Liquid crystals, which seemed like the answer due to its ability to control light by going from liquid to crystal state, had only ever been used on flat glass surfaces such as computer and TV screens. This visor needed to be curved so the pilot would never have to take his eyes off the action.
“The problem was that you couldn’t get the right materials and processes,” Taheri says.
So using technology developed at Kent State and much of its own research, AlphaMicron developed a patented, flexible, liquid-crystal film that can be applied to curved surfaces. The 40-person company is still working on its military-minded projects, “but doing that we realized … the consumer market has the same problem,” Taheri says. “We always look at both.”
The ski goggles are a great example. It’s a very small niche, a place where AlphaMicron can work out the kinks and technical issues before moving into other areas such as motorcycle visors (available this spring), car mirrors, home windows and military goggles.
“No one else is doing what we’re doing,” Taheri says. “That has advantages: There’s no competitors. The disadvantage is that there isn’t anybody who can [help us] make it.”
So AlphaMicron is creating its own manufacturing line and developing its own supply chain for the plastics, the liquid crystals and the chemicals that make it all work.
Using a roll-to-roll manufacturing approach, AlphaMicron can expand its production without enormous amounts of capital investment.
Last year the company moved from its cramped 12,000-square-foot incubator space to become the anchor tenant in Kent State’s Centennial Research Park. With its pale hardwood floors, the occasional nuclear green or orange wall and contemporary art, which is actually photos of how liquid crystal looks through a microscope, you wouldn’t know the building was originally intended to be a bus garage.
The new location allows AlphaMicron’s engineers plenty of elbowroom to test and retest their products and processes. “It’s advantageous for us,” Taheri says. “It’s good for Kent State and the city of Kent.”
In March, AlphaMicron was one of five Northeast Ohio companies to earn a Third Frontier grant from the state of Ohio. The $1 million award will be used to develop and test its liquid crystal mirror for the automotive industry.
“We went from a research company, which is our core strength,” he says, “and now we’re a manufacturing company.”