Optoelectronics Technology Center

The Optoelectronics Technology Center (OTC) was established to facilitate fundamental advances in photonics and optoelectronics by a team of faculty in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Materials Departments. It has been involved in various multicampus consortia funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) since the early nineties. The general goals have been to advance the state-of-the-art in chip-to-chip optical interconnects, optical fiber communications, and biosensors. A main aspect of the Center's charter is to encourage collaboration between academia and the U.S. industry in order to accelerate the realization of practical, manufacturable technologies.

Specific projects have included work on advanced vertical-cavity laser and photodetector arrays as well as their combination with integrated circuits using new heterogeneous integration technologies. This technology should provide new device and material capabilities for the next generation of optical biosensors, computer interconnects, and communications.

There are fifteen total faculty members in the Electronics and Photonics group in ECE—six faculty having joint appointments with the Materials Department, emphasizing the importance of interaction and collaboration between the materials and device thrusts of the group. Student information such as course information/guides and other resources are available for review. Currently, Professors Bowers, Coldren, DenBaars, Gossard and Hu are involved in OTC.