A 30-year experiment became a company.
NanoFraction began with a persistent question: can visible light reveal useful structure beyond the limits assigned to classical optical imaging—without labels, destructive preparation or a vacuum chamber?
Follow the journeyThe idea came before the instrument.
In the early 1990s, César Sciammarella and Luciano Lamberti revisited with photons an experiment that had demonstrated super-resolution behavior using radio waves. The work offered an early indication that holographic moiré principles might create a purely optical path to measurements beyond conventional resolution.
What followed was not a straight line. It was decades of experimental mechanics, holography, optical configurations, equations, failed arrangements, redesigned instruments and accumulated evidence.
Four moments shaped NanoFraction.
The company grew from a scientific lineage, but it took a concrete imaging challenge to turn that lineage into an operating mission.
A photonic clue
Sciammarella and Lamberti recreate a super-resolution experiment with photons, opening a line of inquiry into optical moiré at much smaller scales.
An impossible picture
A small group of investigators sets out to record an unaltered optical image of SARS-CoV-2—an object below the conventional diffraction limit.
The experiment resolves
The team reaches its imaging goal. The result turns a long research program into the beginning of a nanoscale imaging company.
From image to measurement
NanoFraction is applying the architecture to diamond, semiconductors, process materials, textiles and biological samples.
Could we photograph what classical optics said we could not?
The SARS-CoV-2 experiment gave the research a demanding target. The team wanted to capture the virion optically while preserving its state—without fluorescent labels or the environmental constraints required by electron microscopy.
In January 2023, NanoFraction recorded features in its SARS-CoV-2 dataset and compared their morphology with the scientific literature. That achievement did not end the work. It made the next phase possible: calibration, independent correlation, application-specific validation and conversion of the optical method into a repeatable measurement platform.
Access to the nano world—without destroying the context.
NanoFraction’s Digital Holographic Optical Moiré approach is being developed as a family of instruments, software and measurement services that work in reflection or transmission.
See the sample as it is.
Reduce the need for labels, sectioning, chemical preparation, freezing or destructive inspection.
Recover more than a picture.
Connect optical fields with topography, phase, geometry, defects and process-relevant signatures.
Make evidence collaborative.
Build browser-accessible data and analysis workflows that researchers and operating teams can examine together.
No difficult experiment is traveled alone.
NanoFraction’s foundations include the scientific contributions of César Sciammarella, Luciano Lamberti and Federico Sciammarella, and the early support of General Stress Optics. The work also reflects collaborations with the Polytechnic University of Bari, MXD, BioTech and Beyond, Great Lakes Crystal Technologies and a growing network of researchers and builders.
Esther Sciammarella’s encouragement through years of uncertainty holds a special place in this history. Her contribution represents something every long scientific journey depends on: the family and friends whose work is rarely visible, but whose belief makes the work possible.
NanoFraction operates across San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago and Bari, bringing together experimental mechanics, optics, computation, engineering and application knowledge.
The next chapter is written through experiments.
Bring us a measurement problem that current methods cannot solve cleanly, quickly or non-destructively.
