Skip to Navigation
Skip to Content

People

Graduate Students

Post-Doctoral/Visiting Researchers

Group Assistant

  • Libby McCollum

Recent Former Group Members

 
2011 Group

Chad Althouse

Chad Althouse B.S. Material Science and Engineering, 2007
Penn State

althouse@umail.ucsb.edu

Chad Althouse received a B.S. in Materials from PSU in 2007 and has been in the UCSB PhD program since 2008. His research involves the design, fabrication, and testing of photonic integrated circuits on InP and Silicon platforms. Currently he is developing fully integrated beam steering devices for the DARPA funded SWEEPER project. In this project, beam steering is achieved entirely by an electrically controlled phased array which is a laser equivalent of a phased array RADAR. Chad has also investigated injection locking of tunable lasers for high-speed communication and magneto-optical integrated isolators.

Recent Publications:

  • W. Guo, P. R. A. Binetti, C. Althouse, A. Bhardwaj, J. Doylend, H. P.M.M. Ambrosius, L. A. Johansson, L. A. Coldren, “InP Photonic Integrated Circuit for 2D Optical Beam Steering,” IPC Conference, Arlington, V.A. 2011
  • A. Bhardwaj, S. Ristic, L.A. Johansson, C. Althouse and L.A. Coldren, “Direct modulation bandwidth enhancement of strongly injection-locked SG-DBR laser,” Electronics Letters 46, No. 5, 2010
  • P. Capek, G. Stone, V. Dierolf, C. Althouse, V. Gopolan, “Raman Studies of Ferroelectric Domain Walls in Lithium Tantalate and Niobate,” physica status solidi (c) 4, No. 3, 830, 2007
  • C. Althouse, “CALPHAD Modeling of BaTi2O5, BaTi5O11, and Ba1.054Ti0.946O2.946 in the BaO-TiO2 System” Thesis B. S. The Pennsylvania State University, 2007

Chin-Han Lin

Chin-Han Lin B.S. Electrical Engineering, 2003
National Taiwan University

chinhan@ece.ucsb.edu

Chin-Han's research interests involve MBE growth for lasers and photonic integrated circuits, novel structure processing and device modeling. He is currently working on the three-terminal VCSEL project that promises to enhance the bandwidth of directly modulated lasers.

Recent Publications:

Mingzhi Lu

Mingzhi Lu B.S. Electrical Engineering
Southeast University, Nanjing, China
M.S. Electrical Engineering
University of California Santa Barbara

mlu@ece.ucsb.edu

Mingzhi Lu got his B.S. in EE from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, and MS in EE from UCSB. He is now pursuing his PhD in Prof. Coldren's group. His current research interest is on high-frequency coherent optical receiver, based on photonic integrated circuits.

Before joining the group, Mingzhi had focused on various topics such as Terahertz, metamaterials, FSS, pyroelectrics and acoustic signal processing.

John Parker

John Parker B.S. Engineering, 2007
Harvey Mudd College

jparker@ece.ucsb.edu

John Parker received his B.S. in Engineering at Harvey Mudd College in 2007, where he worked several research projects including: thermal management in optical laser refrigeration using ytterbium doped ZBLANP glass, satellite sensor calibration using high-pressure flashbulb lamps, and design of field-programmable-gate-arrays (FPGAs) for cryptographic acceleration. He joined the Coldren group in 2007, and has been working on InGaAsP/InP photonic integrated circuits (PICs) incorporating deeply etched ring resonator structures. His research benefits from the expanse of cleanroom facilities at UCSB, and he appreciates well grown MOCVD material. His current research is focused on broadband comb generation using mode-locked lasers. He enjoys hiking in the Sierras in his free time.

Recent Publications:

  • "RIE lag directional coupler based integrated InGaAsP/InP ring mode-locked laser," J.S. Parker, P.R.A. Binetti, Y-Jr. Yung, E.J. Norberg, L.A. Coldren, IEEE Device Research Conference (DRC), 2011 69th Annual, pp.263-264, 20-22 June 2011
  • "Comparison of comb-line generation from InGaAsP/InP integrated ring mode-locked lasers," J.S. Parker, P.R.A. Binetti, A. Bhardwaj, R.S. Guzzon, E.J. Norberg, Y.-Jr. Hung, L.A. Coldren, in Proc. IEEE CLEO, Baltimore, Maryland, May 1-6, 2011, p. CTuV6
  • "InP/InGaAsP Flattened Ring Lasers With Low-Loss Etched Beam Splitters," J.S. Parker, E.J. Norberg, Y.-Jr Hung, B. Kim, R.S. Guzzon, L.A. Coldren, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 573-575 (May 1, 2011)
  • "Compact InGaAsP/InP Flattened Ring Lasers with Etched Beam Splitters," J. S. Parker, E. Norberg, Y. Hung, R. Guzzon, and L. A. Coldren, in Optical Fiber Communication Conference, OSA Technical Digest (Optical Society of America, 2011), paper OThP2
  • "High verticality InP/InGaAsP etching in Cl2/H2/Ar inductively coupled plasma for photonic integrated circuits," J.S. Parker, E.J. Norberg, R.S. Guzzon, S.C. Nicholes, L.A. Coldren, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 29, 011016-011020 (2011).

Abi Sivananthan

Abi Sivananthan abirami.sivananthan@gmail.com

Abirami received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2007, and received an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, California in 2009. She is currently working towards a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her current research interests are focused on the design and fabrication of monolithically integrated optical phase locked loops for low linewidth semiconductor lasers and widely tunable photonic integrated transmitters on the InP/InGaAsP integration platform.

Yan Zheng

Yan Zheng B.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2005
University of California, San Diego

yazheng@umail.ucsb.edu

http://collaborativeinnovations.wordpress.com/

Yan received his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UCSD where he was very involved with student organizations and engineering projects. In Fall 2006, he joined the Coldren Group. Yan's research is aimed at improving optical interconnects for high-speed data communication by enhancing the performance of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), a key component for optical interconnects. He is specifically looking at new designs for the active region though novel material growth technique using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

He is very active in the community having mentored high school, community college, and undergraduate students in science and engineering through the AR, INSET, and NNIN programs. In addition to being a TA, Yan has also designed and taught his own engineering design course.

Recent Publications:

  1. Y. Zheng, C. -H. Lin, M. Gross, and L.A. Coldren, “Output Polarization Dependence of Asymmetric Current Injection VCSELs on Crystalline Direction and Ion Implantation,” Electronic Materials Conference (EMC), F6, Santa Barbara, CA, June 2011.
  2. Y. Zheng, C. -H. Lin and L.A. Coldren, “Implant Enhanced Dual Intracavity Polarization Switching Asymmetric Current Injected VCSEL,” poster session presented at Optical Fiber Communication Conf., Los Angeles, CA, USA, March 2011.
  3. Y. Zheng, C. -H. Lin and L.A. Coldren, , “Control of Polarization Phase Offset in Low Threshold Polarization Switching VCSELs,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol.23, no.5, pp.305-307, March, 2011.
  4. 4. Y. Zheng, C. -H. Lin and L.A. Coldren, “Large Extinction Ratio and Low Threshold Dual Intracavity Contacted Polarization Switching VCSELS,” Electronics Letters, vol. 46 no. 24, 2010.

Ajit V. Barve

Ajit V. Barve
  • B.S. University of Mumbai, 2005
  • M.S., Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, 2007.
  • Ph.D. (Distinction), Electrical Engineering , University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 2012.

His areas of interest are, growth, fabrication and characterization of nanostructured optoelectronic devices. His doctoral research involved making ultrasensitive focal plane arrays with quantum dot infrared photodetectors, which resulted in over 25 publications in international journals and conferences, including a book chapter in a Semiconductors and Semimetals series book titled 'Advances in Infrared Photodetectors '. He also worked with SK Infrared LLC and Vega Technology and Systems LLC. Ajit joined Prof. Coldren's group at UCSB in 2012. His current research is focused on understanding and controlling the polarization properties of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL).

Pietro Binetti

Pietro Binetti PhD Electrical Engineering, 2009
COBRA Research Institute
Eindhoven, The Netherlands

pbinetti@ece.ucsb.edu

http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~pbinetti/

Pietro received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the COBRA Research Institute, Eindhoven University of Technology, NL, where his research focused on fast InGaAs photodetectors on a InP-Si heterogeneous platform for on-chip optical interconnections on silicon.

In 2009, Pietro joined the group of Prof. Coldren at UCSB. His current research interests include design, fabrication and characterization of photonic integrated circuits for military and commercial applications.

Recent publications:

  • "Indium Phosphide Photonic Integrated Circuits for Coherent Optical Links," P.R.A. Binetti, M. Lu, E.J. Norberg, R.S. Guzzon. J.S. Parker, A. Sivananthan, A. Bhardwaj, L.A. Johansson, M.J. Rodwell, and L.C. Coldren, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, 48, (2), February 2012 Pages 279 - 291 INVITED PAPER
  • "InP-based photodetector bonded on CMOS with Si3N4 interconnect waveguides," P.R.A. Binetti, X.J.M Leijtens, A. Morant Ripoll, T. de Vries, E. Smalbrugge, Y.S. Oei, L. Di Cioccio, J.-M. Fedeli, C. Lagahe,R. Orobtchouk, D. Van Thourhout, P.J. van Veldhoven, R. Notzel, M.K. Smit, LEOS Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings, 2009. LEOS '09. IEEE, 4-8 Oct. 2009 Page(s):139 - 140.
  • "InP/InGaAs photodetector on SOI circuitry," P.R.A. Binetti, X.J.M Leijtens, T. de Vries, Y.S. Oei, L. Di Cioccio, J.-M. Fedeli, C. Lagahe, J. Van Campenhout, D. Van Thourhout, P.J. van Veldhoven, R. Notzel, M.K. Smit, Group IV Photonics, 2009. GFP '09. 6th IEEE International Conference on 9-11 Sept. 2009 Page(s):214 - 216

Weihua Guo

Weihua Guo

Ph.D. Microelectronics and Solid State Electronics, 2004
Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
B.Sc. Physics, 1998
Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China

guow@ece.ucsb.edu

Weihua received his B.Sc. in Physics at Nanjing University, China, in 1998. Afterwards he did research on optical microcavities and semiconductor optical amplifiers at the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, as a postgraduate student and got his Ph.D. there in 2004. After then he joined the Semiconductor Photonics Group in the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, as a post doctoral researcher. He did research there on various things like microcavity enhanced two-photon absorption photodetectors, photonic integrated transmitters for coherent WDM optical communications, in-band optical-signal-to-noise-ratio monitoring techniques, optical pulse characterization techniques, and coherent optical receivers. In October of 2010 he joined Prof. Coldren’s group. His primary interest at the moment is on using InP based photonic integrated circuits to realize functions which are either impossible or difficult to be realized by using other techniques.

Recent Publications:

  • “Fabry-Pérot laser characterization based on the amplified spontaneous emission spectrum and the Fourier series expansion method,” W. H. Guo, D. C. Byrne, Q. Y. Lu, B. Corbett, and J. F. Donegan, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 17, no. 4, 2011.
  • “Design of slotted single mode lasers suitable for photonic integration,” Q. Y. Lu, W. H. Guo, D. C. Byrne, and J. F. Donegan, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 22, no. 11, pp. 787-789, 2010.
  • “Description of polarisation dependence of two-photon absorption in silicon,” J. O’Dowd, W. H. Guo, M. Lynch, E. Flood, A. L. Bradley, and J. F. Donegan, Electronics Letters, vol. 46, no. 12, pp. 854-856, 2010.
  • “Compact 2D FDTD method combined with Padé approximation transform for leaky modes analysis,” Q. Y. Lu, W. H. Guo, D. C. Byrne, and J. F. Donegan, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 28, no. 11, pp. 1638-1645, 2010.
  • “In-band OSNR monitoring using a pair of Michelson fiber interferometers,” E. Flood, W. H. Guo, D. Reid, M. Lynch, A. L. Bradley, L. P. Barry, and J. F. Donegan, Optics Experss, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 3618-3625, 2010.
  • “Leaky modes analysis in very deeply etched ridge waveguides,” Q. Y. Lu, W. H. Guo, D. C. Byrne, and J. F. Donegan, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 22, no. 6, pp.407-409, 2010.

Leif Johansson

Leif Johansson Ph.D. Engineering, 2002
University College, London
M.Sc. Engineering, 1997
KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

leif@ece.ucsb.edu

Leif A. Johansson received the Ph.D. degree in engineering from University College London, London, U.K., in 2002.

He is currently a Research Scientist with the University of California, Santa Barbara. Leif’s research interests include design and characterization of integrated photonic devices for analog and digital applications, and analog photonic systems and subsystems. In 2005, he co-founded Freedom Photonics to commercialize indium phosphide integrated photonic circuit technology.

Recent Publications:

Milan Mashanovitch (Mašanović)

Milan Mashanovitch http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~mashan/

Dr. Milan Mashanovitch (Mašanović) is a project scientist/adjunct professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Milan received his Dipl. Ing. degree from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, as a valedictorian, in 1998. He started his graduate work in the field of integrated photonics at the University of California Santa Barbara in 1998, where he obtained his M.S. (2000) and Ph.D. (2004) degrees. Since 2004, he has been working as a staff scientist/adjunct professor at UC Santa Barbara.

Dr. Mashanovitch is the author or coauthor of more than 85 research papers in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He co-authored the second edition of the book, “Diode Lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits” with Larry Coldren and Scott Corzine, published by John Wiley in 2012. His current research interests include InP photonic integrated circuits (lasers, transmitters, wavelength converters, optical routers), technologies for packet packet-switched optical networks, as well as optical switching technologies for local area networks and harsh environments.

Dr. Mashanovitch has successfully contributed to a number of DARPA funded photonic integration programs: Next Generation Internet (NGI); Chip-Scale WDM (CS-WDM); and Data in the Optical Domain Networks (DOD-N) as a member and photonic integration effort lead on the LASOR (Label Switched Optical Router) team.

Dr. Mashanovitch is a recipient of numerous awards, scholarships and travel grants, including the 2004 IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society Graduate Student Fellowship Award, the 2003 Best Student Paper Award at the Indium Phosphide and Related Materials Conference, and the Studenica Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship Award.

In 2005, Dr. Mashanovitch co-founded Freedom Photonics LLC, a successful photonic integration company based in Santa Barbara, California, which commercializes advanced photonic components and subsytems for defense and commercial markets.