Dallas Section Meeting

TOPIC: The career of a chemist: From Post-doc to Research Chemist to Process Engineer to Entrepreneur to Businessman

Post-doc: Figuring out how to produce (without getting blown up) multiple mole quantities of chlorine nitrate from one of the two known syntheses: ClF + anhydrous nitric acid or Cl₂O + N₂O₅. University of California, Irvine.

Research Chemist:  studying the chemistry of W, Na, Sc, Th, Cd, and I in a quartz vessel at high temperatures, high pressures, and high current electric arc. Why do Sylvania lamps work better? General Electric Company

Process Engineer: Developing the Plasma Etch Reactor as a high volume production tool. Texas Instruments

Entrepreneur: Acting on a vision using my chemistry background: Taking the Paneth Mirror Experiment and the Flowing Afterglow reactor and developing a production tool. PlasmaQuest. 

Businessman:  Building a team with a world class laser expert to make novel precision laser diodes using proprietary plasma etching processes. Photodigm.

Along the way I learned many things, among them:

• The engineering manager has the hardest job in a technology company.  
• The front door and the back door are close together in any business.
• You never forget the two worst days in the business.
• Besides those two days, every day is the best day.

SPEAKER: John E. Spencer, PhD

John Spencer founded Photodigm in 2000 with world-renown laser expert Professor Gary Evans of SMU and two other co-founders. From the beginning, our vision for the company was to exploit the precision and scalability of semiconductor fabrication to develop novel capabilities for laser diodes and other photonic devices. Under John’s leadership as CEO, Photodigm, building on the strength of a world class technical team and a dedicated in-house semiconductor laser fab, has emerged as the leading commercial supplier of single frequency DBR laser diode products for use in frequency references, cold atom physics, low noise, optical pumping, lidar, and spectroscopy. Used by quantum researchers worldwide today, Photodigm’s proprietary Spectroscopy-Certified™ DBR lasers are fueling our customers’ visions of the quantum future. John retired from Photodigm in 2022 and remains on its Board of Directors.

Prior to founding Photodigm, John founded PlasmaQuest in 1988 to commercialize microwave plasma processing for the semiconductor industry. PlasmaQuest was sold to a public company in 1998. He also worked as a research chemist at GE Lighting Business and as process engineer at Texas Instruments, and Director of Technology at Machine Technology, Inc. Over the course of his career he has published over 50 scientific and technical articles and has multiple patents in areas ranging from discharge lamps to semiconductor processing to lasers, the most recent patent having been issued in 2022 concerning the application of lasers in driverless vehicles.

Following his retirement from Photodigm, John has worked as an expert witness in several patent and intellectual property cases. These include patent cases involving Inter Partes Review, Ex-partes Reviews, and testimony in federal court involving intellectual property theft.

John has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Rice University and a B.S. degree in chemistry from Millsaps College. He did postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine.