Current Research Projects
Ultrafast Fiber Laser and Amplifiers
Femtosecond fiber lasers and amplifiers allow for high performance lasers systems to be used outside of a laboratory environment. Fiber research ranges from fundamental investigations into nonlinear pulse and solitary-wave propagation to laser engineering for a range of applications. Recent work demonstrates self-similar pulses, dissipative solitons, giant-chirp oscillators for direct amplification, 10 cycle-pulses and also Watt level powers all from fiber lasers.
Spatiotemporal Solitons
Optical solitons are packets of localized electromagnetic radiation that propagate without spreading out despite diffraction or group-velocity dispersion. We are working to generate fully-confined spatiotemporal solitons (sometimes referred to as "light bullets"), and we are also investigating the potential future uses of light bullets in information processing.
Lead-salt Semiconductor Quantum Dots
Nanocrystals of the IV-VI semiconductors PbS, PbSe, or PbTe provide unique properties for investigating the effects of strong confinement on electrons and phonons. In our group, we investigate their basic properties, synthesize and modify their structure chemically, and incorporate them into devices. Recent work has focused on charge transfer out of nanocrystals in solar cells, modification of their surface to give them novel material properties, and spectroscopic probes of their energy levels.
More Information
Our main research projects are listed here. At any given time we will also typically have some smaller specific projects.