What changed in Lightwave Logic, Inc.'s 10-K — 2024 vs 2025

Item 1. Business . Overview Lightwave Logic, Inc. is a technology platform company leveraging its proprietary engineered electro-optic (EO) polymers, named Perkinamine® to transmit data at higher speeds with less power in a small form factor.

The Company’s high activity and high stability organic polymers allow it to create next-generation photonic EO devices that convert data from electrical signals into light/optical signals for applications in telecommunications, and for data transmission potentially used to support generative AI.

Our differentiation at the modulator device level is in higher speed, lower power consumption, simplicity of manufacturing, small footprint (size), and reliability.

We have demonstrated the electro-optic polymers potential for higher speed and lower power consumption in packaged devices, and during 2024, we continued to make advances in techniques to translate our world class material properties to efficient, reliable modulator devices with commercial foundries.

We are currently focused on: a) working with potential and existing customers to integrate our proprietary materials into our customers’ specific PIC and device architecture; b) testing and demonstrating the superior performance, simplicity of manufacturability and reliability of our devices, including in conjunction with the silicon photonics manufacturing ecosystem; and c) providing our potential and existing customers with the proper Process Development Kits (PDKs) to enable the efficient and fast integration of our materials into their own design and manufacturing plans.

Silicon-based foundries are semiconductor fabrication plants developed for the electronics IC business, that are now engaging with silicon photonics to increase their wafer throughput. Partnering with silicon-based foundries not only demonstrates that our polymer technology can be transferred into standard production lines using standard equipment, it also allows us to efficiently utilize our capital.

The foundry partnerships will allow us to scale our high-performance polymer optical engines quickly and efficiently. We have now received silicon wafers that range up to 200mm in diameter, which aligns well with foundry manufacturing.

Our extremely strong and broad patent portfolio allows us to optimize our business model in three areas: 1) Traditional focus on polymer materials development, 2) Patent licensing and 3) Technology transfer to foundries. We are continually looking to strengthen our patent portfolio both by internal inventions and acquisition of intellectual property.

We are initially targeting applications in fiber optic data communications and telecommunications markets, in particular ultra-high bandwidth optical connections deployed inside and between datacenters and/or AI clusters. In addition, we are exploring other applications that include automotive/LIDAR, sensing, displays, storage, aerospace and defense, satellites, quantum computing etc., for our polymer technology platform.

Our goal is to have our unique polymer technology platform become ubiquitous across multiple market verticals over and above the optical fiber optic communications markets. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been integrating deeper within our daily activities with applications to make us more efficient and possibly smarter.

The impact on the internet is huge, and the internet is based on an optical network that utilizes data centers to route and switch traffic or information to and from destinations. Data centers are being upgraded today in a fashion that the industry has not seen before with significant investments of capital.

The expected demands of increased traffic, information, and data driven by AI is changing the way the internet is being operated. AI is now creating new and interesting market opportunities to upgrade the internet. Three of these opportunities are important today: density, speed, and low power and these are very well aligned with our high performance electro-optic polymers modulator platform.

We are designing high performance polymer modulator optical engines to support the rise and growth of AI as it generates more information that will travel through the internet and optical network.

While we are not directly an AI company designing electronic processors, we do see immediate benefits of enabling higher levels of information to cross the internet using our optical polymer modulator platform. Unless the context otherwise requires, all references to the “Company,” “we,” “our” or “us” and other similar terms means Lightwave Logic, Inc.

Presently, our commercial operations consist of a material supply license agreement to provide Perkinamine ® chromophore materials for polymer based photonic devices and photonic integrated circuits (PICs). The license agreement represents tangible commercial progress for electro-optic polymers as part of our Company's business plan.

Our Company is also in various stages of new materials development and evaluation with potential customers and strategic partners. We expect to continue to obtain a revenue stream from technology licensing agreements, and to obtain additional revenue streams from technology transfer agreements and direct sale of our electro-optic materials.

We have seen increased interest in our materials during 2024, driven by the need for higher speed connections to scale the AI-enabled network infrastructure and we are in discussions on future license agreements. In December 2024, we made the decision to focus our commercial and R&D efforts on the EO Polymer materials development and manufacturing.

Although we continue to develop full Photonic Integrated Circuits and packaged device designs as part of our internal technology and process development roadmap, we are not actively promoting the sale of such PICs and/or packaged devices to external customers, but rather EO Polymer materials supply and license agreements.

Materials Development Our Company designs and synthesizes organic chromophores for use in its own proprietary electro-optic polymer systems and photonic device designs. A polymer system is not solely a material but also encompasses various technical enhancements necessary for its implementation. These include host polymers, poling methodologies, and molecular spacer systems that are customized to achieve specific optical properties.

Our organic electro-optic polymer systems compounds are mixed into solution form that allows for thin film application. Our proprietary electro-optic polymers are designed at the molecular level for potentially superior performance, stability, and cost-efficiency.

We believe our proprietary and unique polymers have the potential to replace more expensive, higher power consuming, slower-performance materials such as semiconductor-based modulator devices that are used in fiber-optic communication networks today. Our patented and patent pending molecular architectures are based on a well-understood chemical and quantum mechanical occurrence known as aromaticity .

Aromaticity provides a high degree of molecular stability that enables our core molecular structures to maintain stability under a broad range of operating conditions.

We expect our patented and patent-pending optical materials along with trade secrets and licensed materials, to be the core of and the enabling technology for future generations of optical devices, modules, sub-systems, and systems that we will develop or enable our partners to fully commercialize.

Examples of our partners include: electro-optic PIC and device design and manufacturing companies, contract manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers, foundries, packaging and assembly manufacturers etc.

Our Company contemplates future applications in market verticals that may address the needs of semiconductor companies, optical network companies, Web 2.0/3.0 media companies, high performance computing companies, telecommunications companies, aerospace companies, automotive companies, as well as for example, government agencies and defense entities. Device Design and Development Electro-optic Modulators Our Company designs its own proprietary materials for electro-optical modulation devices.

Electro-optical modulators convert data from electric signals into optical signals that can then be transmitted over high-speed fiber-optic cables. Our modulators are electro-optic, meaning they work because the optical properties of the polymers are affected by electric fields applied by means of electrodes.

Modulators are key components that are used in fiber optic telecommunications, data communications, and data centers networks etc., to convey the high data flows that have been driven by applications such as pictures, video streaming, movies etc., that are being transmitted through the Internet.

Electro-optical modulators are expected to continue to be an essential element as the appetite and hunger for data increases every year as well as the drive towards lower power consumption, and smaller footprint (size). Current semiconductor photonic technology today is struggling to reach faster device speeds.

Our modulator devices, enabled by our electro-optic polymer material systems, work at extremely high frequencies (wide bandwidths) and possess inherent advantages over current crystalline electro-optic material contained in most modulator devices such as bulk lithium niobate (LiNbO3), indium phosphide (InP), silicon (Si), and gallium arsenide (GaAs).

Our advanced electro-optic polymer platform is creating a new class of modulators that can be easily integrated into various PIC platforms and can address higher data rates in a lower cost, lower power consuming manner, smaller footprint (size) with much simpler data encoding techniques.

Our electro-optic polymer material will boost the performance of standard PIC platforms such as silicon photonics and indium phosphide. Our electro-optic polymers can be integrated with other materials platforms because they can be applied as a thin film coating in a fabrication clean room such as may be found in semiconductor foundries using standard clean room tooling.

These approaches enable our device platforms to not only be competitive but fully integrated with foundries. Our polymers are unique in that they are stable enough to seamlessly integrate into existing CMOS, Indium Phosphide (InP), Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), and other semiconductor manufacturing lines. Of relevance are the integrated silicon photonics platforms that combine optical and electronic functions.