The SolidState and Photonics Lab is the part of Electrical Engineering at Stanford that researches new devices, materials, and physical concepts, and explores some of the applications and systems enabled by such novel technology.

One of the important roles of the Lab is to form a bridge from basic science and technology to devices and applications. The benefits of such a bridge can flow in both directions, both creating devices and technologies that enable new levels of performance in systems, and also stimulating basic investigations in exciting and fertile areas.

In the Lab, there is basic physical work on surfaces and interfaces, as well as investigations of the electrical and optical properties of semiconductor nanostructures and the electronic structure of highly correlated materials. Work on the fundamentals of fabrication technologies includes radical approaches such as scanning tip arrays. Basic work in optics and optoelectronics includes advanced concepts in nonlinear optics such as electromagnetically-induced transparency that can make certain substances exactly transparent while retaining their remarkable nonlinear properties novel laser sources,  fundamental quantum phenomena such as light where even some of the quantum noise is "squeezed" out, and quantum computing. Recently there has been strong growth in interest in photonic nanostructures, an exciting class of optical nanostructures with many interesting and useful properties, including photonic crystal theory, photonic crystal devices and circuits for optoelectronics and quantum information processing, combinations of micromechanics and nanophotonics,  nanoapertures, and non-periodic structures for applications such as wavelength splitters. The photonics work also extends to advanced communication system concepts, including coherent detection in single-mode fiber, spatial multiplexing in multi-mode fiber, and free-space links.

Novel and high-speed electronic device structures are being researched, especially in compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide, and also recently germanium-on-silicon materials and devices for integrated electronic and optoelectronic systems A broad variety of optoelectronic devices are being examined, including tunable lasers with micron dimensions, and high-speed optical modulators. Many of these devices are based on so-called "quantum well" semiconductor structures that exploit the novel quantum-mechanical properties of very thin layers of semiconductor materials. New applications of the optoelectronic devices being researched include dense, high-speed optical interconnections to silicon circuits. Other work examines ultra-high density optical data storage. There is also work on the basics and applications of high-temperature superconductors.

Work on new sensing and measuring techniques includes fiber optic acoustic sensors and sensor arrays, ultrasonic sensors for semiconductor process monitoring and other applications, novel miniaturized and programmable spectral sensors, and scanning probe microscopes. New materials and structures are being developed for read and write heads for very high density magnetic nanotechnology. Micromechanical devices are also being investigated for applications in optics. Biological systems, such as membrane proteins, are being sensed and manipulated using silicon microfabrication technologies.

The above topics represent only a sampling of the research in the Lab. There are approximately 18 faculty associated with the Lab. They are housed largely in the Ginzton Lab and the extension of the adjacent Center for Integrated Systems building (CIS-X), with some members also in McCullough and SLAC.

Lab members include

Mac Beasley, Shanhui Fan,  Jim Gibbons, Jim Harris, Steve Harris, Bert Hesselink, Joseph Kahn, Pierre Khuri-Yakub,  Gordon Kino, David Miller (Director),  Piero Pianetta, Cal Quate, Zhi-Xun Shen, Olav Solgaard, Tony Siegman, Jelena Vuckovic,  Shan Wang, and Yoshi Yamamoto.

QueltaNews from StanfordUniversity

 By Vasil Sidorov on April 23, 2009 E-mail: sidorovvasil@gmail.com