About Us

Lenterra is a privately-owned R&D company specializing in the development of sensor instrumentation based on a range of patented optical and ionized gas/plasma-based technologies. Lenterra is located in the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Enterprise Development Center in Newark, NJ.

Company History

Lenterra was incorporated in the state of New Jersey in 2002 by president and founder Dr. Valery Sheverev. From its inception the company has focused on the realization of sensor instrumentation based on technologies born in basic research. In 2004 Lenterra was awarded its first Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from NASA entitled “Fast GC for Space Applications Based on PIES Technology,” with a follow-up Phase II award the following year. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the company a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant in 2005 to develop Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) optical resonator sensors, in collaboration with Professor Volkan Otugen’s group at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY. In 2008 Dr. Sheverev was granted a fundamental patent for the PIES method (US Pat. 7,408,360), and efforts to develop a portable PIES gas analyzer for greenhouse gas measurement began through a Phase II DOE grant, incorporating a carbon nanotube microconcentrator developed by Somenath Mitra’s group at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. A 2009 NSF SBIR Phase I grant was awarded to develop a WGM-based shear stress sensor, in collaboration with Prof. Richard Calabrese’s group at the University of Maryland, specifically for application in high-shear industrial mixing. Lenterra was awarded two grants from NSF for 2010, an SBIR Phase I grant to develop spectral photoionization detection (SPID), a new gas analysis technique for the detection and identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and an SBIR Phase II grant to continue development and commercialization of a shear stress sensor based on micro-optical resonator technology. In August of 2010, Lenterra was issued a patent for measuring shear stress using a micro-optical resonator (US Pat. 7,770,463). In February of 2011, Lenterra launched its flagship line of shear stress sensors, the RealShear™ F-Series, along with its associated optical controller, the LOC-F. October 2011 brought the issuing of a third patent to the company’s portfolio, U.S. Pat. 8,028,586 “Load cell and system for measuring forces based on optical spectra shift.”