Title:Application of stress engineering in nonuniformly polarized optics
Speaker: Prof. Thomas G. Brown
Time:Oct.23. 2012.10:00-11:30
Venue: Room A101 At WNLO
Abstract:
Spatial inhomogeneities in the polarization of a light field can show fascinating effects in focusing, propagation, illumination, and imaging. This talk will provide an overview of such fields and describe how deterministic stress on the periphery of an optical element can produce effects ranging from optical vortices to extended depth of focus in an imaging system.
Biography:
Professor Brown began his work in optics and optoelectronics in 1978 as an optical fiber systems designer at GTE Laboratories. While there, he wrote the systems modeling software which was used to design the first live-traffic 1.3 µm optical fiber telephone link. Since that time, he has had consultancies and technical collaboration with companies such as IBM, Corning Inc., ABB Kent-Taylor, Amp, Rockwell, Rochester Gas and Electric, and Emerson Corporation, along with several law firms and many of the Industrial Associates of the Institute of Optics. His doctoral dissertation, carried out at the Institute of Optics, under the supervision of Professor Dennis Hall, was in the area of silicon-based optoelectronics with particular emphasis on mechanisms for extrinsic light emission in silicon. Since joining the Institute faculty in 1987, Professor Brown has taught on both the Graduate and Undergraduate levels, established the Undergraduate Honors Research Program, and currently oversees an undergraduate program of approximately 80 students. He received a College of Engineering award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 1994. His professional affiliations have included the Optical Society of America, SPIE, and the Materials Research Society. He has served as refereee for numerous professional journals, has served on the Technical Program Committee for the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Photonics West, Optics and Photonics (the annual meeting of SPIE), Opto-Northeast, and Frontiers in Optics (the annual meeting of the OSA); he is currently on the editorial board for the web-based journal Optics Express. He has authored over 60 publications, 10patents, 3 book chapter,was an editor for the four-volume Optics Encyclopedia, and served as co-contributor of articles entitled Light and Polarized Light for the 2008 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. Professor Brown is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, is President of the Rochester Local Chapter of the Optical Society of America, and currently serves as the Chair of the Polarization Engineering technical group of the OSA. In 2006, he was invited to spend three months at the University of Sydney as the Denison Distinguished Visiting Professor. Thomas G. Brown has been on the faculty of the Institute of Optics since July of 1987, has held the rank of full professor since March of 2008, and currently serves as chair of undergraduate studies and director of the Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering. While at Rochester, he has conducted research in semiconductors, optoelectronics, optical fiber microstructures, optical polarization, and optical engineering. His early research focused on frequency-stable semiconductor laser design and silicon-based waveguide technology, including the first experimental observation of all-optical switching in a nonlinear Bragg reflector. His publications have twice (1993 and 2000) been cited among the best optics-related research by Optics and Photonics News. Professor Browns recent research activities have included: 1) Focusing and coherence properties of polarization vortex beams; 2) Optical vortices induced by stress birefringent elements; 3) High Q resonators in SOI waveguides; 4) Modeling and characterization of photonic crystal fibers; 5) Optical properties of quantum amplified isomers for photopolymers. The work on polarization polymers had been applied to semiconductor lithography and inspection, and single molecule imaging [PRL 86, 5251 (2001)].
