Center Goals

  • Developing, by rational design that exploits recent advances in quantum and statistical mechanics, transformative new electro-optic materials and devices with enhanced properties including bandwidth, drive voltage, optical loss, power consumption, and stability.
  • Enabling all-optical information processing by development of new third-order nonlinear optical materials that offer ultra-fast, large nonlinearities and low loss at telecommunication wavelengths.

    Mount Rainier. Seattle, WA

    • Implementing new infrared light sources, amplifiers, and detectors based on organic and hybrid opto-electronic materials that can be readily integrated into opto-chips.
    • Seamlessly integrating materials and devices from the nanoscale to the microscale using self assembly, two-photon photolithography, and reactive ion etching for the low cost production of dense 3D optical, electro-optical, and opto-electronic circuitry.
    • Exploiting photonic bandgap lattices and control of coupling to microresonators to enhance both second (electro-optic) and third-order (all-optical) nonlinear optical device performance.
    • Producing organic electronic materials and devices that will be processed into low cost circuits.
    • Creating cross-disciplinary curricula and educational resource materials that are directly tied to the research function and expertise of this Center and evaluating their impact.
    • Recruiting and tracking, proactively, individuals from under-represented groups into the Center, through seminar programs, internships, fellowships, and strategic interactions.
    • Enabling commercialization of new technology developed within the center by licensing to industry, by tracking developed technology, and by fostering the creation of new spin-off and start-up companies.

    Center Values

    • The Center is committed to excellence in research, education, and technology transfer, and will seek to achieve effective integration of these three sectors.
    • It will foster innovation through paradigm-shifting, high-payoff research driven by end-to-end, theoretically-experimentally coupled research and development of new materials and devices.
    • All members of the Center are committed to increasing the diversity of the participants in the Center in particular, and of the workforce of the field in general.
      • By increasing public awareness about opportunities in this field, the Center will seek to make careers accessible to a broader and more diverse cross section of our national population.
      • The Center will establish effective partnerships with industry, government laboratories, and designated-minority institutions.
      • It will maintain flexibility in order to adapt to new opportunities and challenges.