On Friday, May 27 at 5pm, graduate students, UCSB professors, and representatives from 10 local photonics companies gathered for a night of food and networking at the UCSB Corwin Pavilion. The Banquet began with a recruitment pitch for the Photonics Society followed by talks from Thorlabs, Nexus Photonics, and Raytheon Vision Systems who are all major sponsors of the Photonics Society this year. Thanks to their generous support, the photonics society was able to host this event and many other small events at no cost to attendees.

After a bountiful dinner, Professor Bowers co-hosted a talk with all of the companies in attendance to provide an overview of all the photonics opportunities in Santa Barbara. The presentation slides from Thorlabs, Nexus Photonics, Raytheon Vision Systems, and Professor Bowers can be accessed here.​ In his talk, Bowers showed work from Quintessent, OpenLight (prev. Aurrion), Morton Photonics, OE Solutions, Aeluma, Freedom Photonics, Ultra-Low Loss Technologies, Mirios, and Nexus Photonics. During his talk he passed the microphone to several of the industry members from these companies, giving them a chance to talk about their work. Industry members were excited to be back in person for networking and several were actively hiring students at the event. 

Dr. John Bowers is a world-leading researcher in the areas of silicon photonics, optoelectronics, energy efficiency and the development of novel low power optoelectronic devices for the next generation of optical networks. Dr. Bowers worked for AT&T Bell Laboratories and Honeywell before joining UC Santa Barbara. At UCSB, he holds the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology and is the Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include silicon photonics and integrated circuits, fiber optic networks, thermoelectrics, high efficiency solar cells, and optical switching. He is a cofounder of Aurrion, Aerius Photonics and Calient Networks. He has published two books, ten book chapters, 450 journal papers, 1000 conference papers and has received 54 patents. He and coworkers received the EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Award for Most Promising Technology for the hybrid silicon laser in 2007.

Member of : 
National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors

Fellow of: 
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Optical Society of America (OSA), American Physical Society (APS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Honors:
Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award, Optical Society (OSA); IEEE Photonics Award; Tyndall Award (OSA/IEEE ); IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award; International Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials (IPRM) Award; Highly Cited Researchers List, Web of Science Group; South Coast Business and Technology's Entrepreneur of the Year
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Affiliations:
American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics, Institute for Energy Efficiency

Education:
PhD Stanford University
MS Stanford University​

Fluency Lighting Technologies is an early stage start-up company developing technology out of UC Santa Barbara. At Fluency, we are creating next-generation bright and narrow-beam light sources for highly efficient illumination, using laser technology and materials design. Our focus is the development of low-cost, optical platforms that convert laser diode emission into high-quality white light in various light levels, beam angles, and color temperatures, designed for customer-driven metrics, in applications where energy-saving LED technology is not used because of the limited light output from an LED.

Abstract
The continuing growth in demand for bandwidth (from residential and business users), necessitates significant research into new advanced technologies that will be employed in future broadband communication systems. Two specific technologies, becoming increasingly important for future photonic systems, are wavelength tunable lasers and optical frequency combs. Although these topics have been studied for over two decades their significance for the development of future ultra-high capacity photonic systems has only recently been fully understood. Wavelength tunable lasers are currently becoming the norm in optical communication systems because of their flexibility and ability to work on any wavelength. However, as their operating principles are different to standard single mode lasers they can effect how future systems will operate. For example as optical transmission systems move towards more coherent transmission (where the data is carried using both the intensity and phase of the optical carrier), the phase noise in these tunable lasers will become increasingly important. Optical frequency combs also have many applications for future photonics systems, and for telecommunications they can be used to obtain the highest spectral efficiency in optical transmission systems by employing the technology of optical frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and also for generation of high frequency RF signals in future 5G networks. Wavelength tunable lasers and optical frequency combs are thus topics at the leading edge of current photonics systems research, and their detailed understanding promises new applications in all-optical signal processing, optical sensing and metrology, and specifically telecommunications. This talk will focus on the development and characterization of various wavelength tunable lasers and optical frequency combs, and then outline how these sources can be employed for developing optical transmission systems and networks which make the best use of available optical spectrum.

Biography
Liam Barry received his BE (Electronic Engineering) and MEngSc (Optical Communications) 
degrees from University College Dublin in 1991 and 1993 respectively. From February 1993 until January 1996 he was employed as a Research Engineer in the Optical Systems Department of
France Telecom's Research Laboratories (now known as Orange Labs) in Lannion, France, and as a result of this work he obtained his PhD Degree from the University of Rennes in France. In February 1996 he joined the Applied Optics Center in Auckland University, New Zealand, as a Research Fellow and in March 1998 he took up a lecturing position in the School of Electronic Engineering at Dublin City University, and established the Radio and Optical Communications Laboratory. From April 2006 until February 2010 he served as Director of The Rince Institute, an interdisciplinary research center with over 100 researchers. He is currently a Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering, a Principal Investigator for Science Foundation Ireland, and Director of the Radio and Optical Communications Laboratory. His main research interests are; all-optical signal processing, optical pulse generation and characterization, hybrid radio/fibre communication systems, wavelength tuneable lasers for reconfigurable optical networks, and optical performance monitoring. He has published over 200 articles in international peer reviewed journals, 250 papers in international peer reviewed conferences, and holds 10 patents in the area of optoelectronics. He has been a TPC member for the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) since 2004, and a TPC member for the Optical Fibre Communication Conference (OFC) from 2007 to 2010, serving as Chair of the Optoelectronic Devices sub-committee for OFC 2010.

Abstract: In this presentation, Garrett provides an overview of how two scientists from the University of Vienna stumbled upon an enabling technology, born from fundamental research in the burgeoning field of cavity optomechanics, and made a successful transition from academia to industry. The fruit of this endeavor is “Crystalline Mirror Solutons,” or CMS, a photonics start-up commercializing high-performance optics for laser-based precision measurement and manufacturing systems. Here, Garrett outlines the key elements that led to their successes, including the conception of the underlying technology, as well as the supporting infrastructure and funding organizations that ultiately assisted in bringing this idea out of the laboratory and onto the
commercial market.
Bio: Dr. Garrett D. Cole, Co-Founder of Crystalline Mirror Solutions (www.crystallinemirrors.com), obtained his PhD in Materials from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005. Since completing his doctorate, he has held positions ranging from the first employee of a high-tech startup (Aerius Photonics LLC, now FLIR Electro-Optical Components), to a postdoctoral position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Marie Curie Fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and, prior to leaving to found CMS, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna. In the course of his research career, Dr. Cole has co-authored 2 book chapters and published more than 50 journal articles and conference proceedings including papers in Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Leveraging his expertise in micro- and nanofabrication, tunable lasers, and cavity optomechanics, Dr. Cole developed the proprietary substrate-transfer process at the heart of Crystalline Mirror Solutions and, along with Professor Markus Aspelmeyer, co-founded the venture in February 2012.

Abstract: Success in a photonic startup company requires constant attention to the balance between risk and opportunity. These risk / opportunity decisions involve many different areas, technical, marketing, financial, organizational and psychological, among others. Some of these decisions are very specific to photonic startup issues but the balance of opportunity and risk touches on a broad range of aspects of life, of course.
This presentation discussed the general nature of risk and opportunity and from these general ideas will then derive recommendations for effective risk management methods in photonic startups. The presenter did this through examples drawn from his own experience and from the experience of others that have influenced him strongly

Bio: Dr. Daniel Renner received a Ph.D in Opto-Electronics from the University of Cambridge in England. This has been followed by 37 years of industrial experience, where he has been deeply involved with the development, manufacturing and commercialization of complex photonic devices and systems used in communication, sensor and industrial applications. His experience spans both the technical and the commercialization aspects of photonic products, having led activities in many areas, including technology and product development, identification of new business areas, introduction of new products, marketing and sales. Through this experience he has gained a respectful appreciation for the critical importance of effective business risk management.