The electrical power consumed in data transmission systems is now hampering efforts to further increase speed and capacity at various scales, ranging from data centers to microprocessors. Optical interconnects employing ultra-low-energy directly-modulated lasers will play a key role in reducing the power consumption. Since a laser's operating energy is proportional to the size of its active volume, developing high-performance laser with a small cavity is important. For this purpose, we have developed DFB and photonic crystal (PhC) lasers, in which active regions are buried with an InP layer. Thanks to the reduction of cavity size and the increase in optical confinement factor, we have achieved an extremely small operating energy of 4.4 fJ/bit by employing a wavelength-scale PhC cavity. Cost reduction is also an important issue because a larger number of transmitters are required for short-distance optical links. For this purpose, Si photonics technology is expected to be a potential solution because it can provide large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Therefore, heterogeneous integration of III-V compound semiconductors and Si has attracted much attention. To fabricate these devices, we have developed wafer-scale fabrication  that employs regrowth of III-V compound semiconductors on directly-bonded thin InP templates on an SiO2/Si substrate. 

​NASA’s trend toward less costly missions has created a need for smaller and more capable instruments for in situ planetary applications, space weather, and Earth Observations. The rise of cubesats has created a new powerful platform that if enabled with powerful sensing technology can be an instrument of discovery. At the same time, large aperture UV/visible/Near Infrared space telescope are being planned for cosmology and astrophysics studies that will need high performance yet affordable detectors to populate their very large focal plane arrays. In nearly all these facets of space exploration, there is a strong need for high signal to noise ultraviolet detection technology. This is due to the fact that the ultraviolet part of the spectrum is rich in spectral information that are key to study exo-solar planets, protoplanets, intergalactic medium, supernovae, electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational wave, star formation, galaxy evolution, and more. Semiconductor detectors offer a rich spectral range, tailorable spectral response, high resolution, and sensitivity; however, these capabilities are not available in a single material or class of material. For example, while silicon imagers have reached high performance levels in format, pixel size, and signal to noise, they are naturally insensitive to ultraviolet light. Using non-equilibrium processes, we can manipulate materials at nanometer scale, form unusual and quantum structures, and alter bandstructures. Through nanoscale surface and interface engineering of 2D doping (superlattice doping and delta doping) high performance silicon-based imagers are produced with record high quantum efficiency in the ultraviolet. Furthermore, the response of silicon imagers can be tailored for out of band rejection through nano-scale interface engineering. In this talk we will discuss the underlying physics of the ultraviolet silicon detectors, their performance, their integration in systems, and their application in cubesats and space flagship missions. We will also discuss the synergy between the requirements for instruments in NASA space applications and medical applications and show how space technologies can and have been used for medical applications.

Come and mingle for any sessions during the first all-online photonics conference, the Photonics Online Meetup (POM). The event will be continuously live-streamed between 11am and 4pm in Elings 1605. Refreshments will be served.
The conference will feature internationally renowned scientists as plenary speakers:

• Prof. Mete Atature (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Prof. Nader Engheta (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Prof. Mercedeh Khajavikhan (CREOL-University of Central Florida, USA)

The complete program can be found here:
https://sites.usc.edu/pom/program/

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.

In this talk I will highlight the history of GaN research at UCSB, and some of the key breakthroughs and technologies developed by the faculty, students and staff.  Starting with one MOCVD system, UCSB Faculty were the first University world-wide to achieve a blue GaN Laser in 1996. In 2000, Prof. Shuji Nakamura joined the Faculty and along with Prof. DenBaars, Prof. Speck and Prof. Mishra co-founded the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC), which has now become one of the largest academic GaN based Photonic and Electronic research centers in the world. SSLEEC has played a key role in developing numerous breakthroughs, some of which have led to the realization of high-efficiency Solid-State Lighting, which the Dept. of Energy estimates will save the equivalent annual electrical output of about fifty 1,000-megawatt power plants. 

​Looking into the future we see next generation GaN Laser Diode based solid state lighting as impacting high brightness specialty lighting. We have demonstrated laser based white lighting with luminous efficacies of 87 lm/watt, and over 1000 lumens from a single emitter.  In addition, tunnel junctions have been employed to achieve vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) in the blue spectral region. Blue and green lasers and Micro-LEDs based on GaN materials are expected to enable new full color projections displays for cinema, office and augmented reality (AR) applications.

Two-dimensional Van der Waals materials have emerged as a very attractive class of optoelectronic material due to the unprecedented strength in its interaction with light. In this talk I will discuss approaches to realize quantum photonic devices by integrating these 2D materials with microcavities, and metamaterials. I will first discuss the formation of strongly coupled half-light half-matter quasiparticles (microcavity polaritons) and their optical and electrical control in the 2D transition metal dichacogenide (TMD) systems. Prospects of realizing condensation and few photon nonlinear switches using Rydberg states in TMDs will also be discussed. Following this, I will discuss the broadband enhancement of light-matter interaction in these 2D materials using photonic hypercrystals and chiral metasurfaces. Finally, I will talk about room temperature single photon emission from hexagonal boron nitride and the prospects of developing deterministic quantum emitters using them through strain engineering. The realization of room temperature single photon emitters and few photon
nonlinear switches using 2D materials presents an attractive direction for robust next generation quantum photonic technologies.​