Piscataway, NJ--C. J. Chang-Hasnain, an engineer whose groundbreaking contributions to the physics and design of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have shaped their use in modern technology, is being honored by IEEE with the 2011 IEEE David Sarnoff Award.
The award, sponsored by Sarnoff Corporation, recognizes Chang-Hasnain for pioneering contributions to VCSEL arrays and tunable VCSELs. The award will be presented on March 8th at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC; Los Angeles, CA, March 8-11, 2011).
Chang-Hasnain's seminal contributions have been instrumental in establishing VCSELs as the dominant technology for multimode-fiber applications. And her work has had a profound influence on commercial tunable, high-speed and laser-array designs. VCSELs comprise more than 75% of today's laser market, dominating the high-volume, low-cost and short-distance laser sectors. They can be modulated at gigahertz rates, but yet manufactured at very low cost using wafer-scale methods. VCSELs are now used in applications ranging from Ethernet data networks to computer mice to laser printers. Most local area networks and large-scale data centers supporting Internet traffic use VCSELs. Active optical cables that link home high-definition television components are a growing consumer application of VCSELs.
Prototyping the Ethernet
Chang-Hasnain's invention and integration of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and photonic systems created a new class of optoelectronic devices. Chang-Hasnain explained the modal structure of VCSELs and demonstrated the first planar structure, which was commercialized. Her demonstration of the first gigabyte-per-second multimode VCSEL transmission using a multimode optical fiber became the prototype of today's Ethernet technology. She was the first to demonstrate that VCSEL arrays can be created with precisely spaced wavelengths to form a 140-wavelength array. She also showed that VCSELs can be used for wavelength-division multiplexing applications.
Chang-Hasnain demonstrated the first realizable tunable VCSEL structure with a wide tuning range. She later invented a high-contrast grating that led to a tunable laser with a 40x improvement in speed. Overall, her developments concerning wavelength-engineered VCSELs have resulted in tunable lasers that have both a wide range and continuous tuning simultaneously.
An IEEE Fellow, Chang-Hasnain is a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, an Honorary Member of A. F. Loffe Institute (Russia) and a Chang-Jiang Scholar at Tsinghua University, China. She holds 37 patents and has published more than 400 papers. Chang-Hasnain has been the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Lightwave Technology since 2007. Her awards include the IEEE Photonics Society's William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, the Optical Society of America's Nick Holonyak Jr. Award, and the Humboldt Research Award. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis, and master's and doctorate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, all in electrical engineering and computer science. She is currently the John R. Whinnery Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chang-Hasnain is also a member of the Laser Focus World Advisory Board.
