March 12, 2021
A broad vision for scientific progress and the growing experience to bring that vision to life recently earned Ricardo Bustos-Ramirez the honor of CREOL’s 2021 Student of the Year. The Ph.D. candidate’s research focuses on chip-scale optical frequency combs. Potential applications include LIDAR measurements and the search for exoplanets. Bustos-Ramirez has co-authored and published over…
March 2, 2021
Thousands of people are seeing more clearly thanks in part to the vision of Vadim Smirnov,’02 MS, whose research group played an integral role in the development of lasers that revolutionized cataract surgery. Local optical component manufacturer OptiGrate Corp was approached by a medical laser company more than 10 years ago with a request to…
March 2, 2021
Brian Lawrence ’97PhD sees problems as opportunities. A self-described “experimentalist at heart,” Lawrence ran into plenty of problems in seventh grade when he built a power supply to power a donated HeNe laser tube to explore his curiosity about lasers. Those problems became learning opportunities that led him to eventually assemble more powerful ruby crystal…
March 2, 2021
Globally recognized optical and infrared materials scientist Clara Rivero-Baleine, Ph.D., has dedicated her life to the field of optics. In celebration of her many contributions to the field, CREOL, the UCF College of Optics and Photonics, named Rivero-Baleine the recipient of 2019’s Distinguished Alumni Award. “I am honored to be recognized by an institution that…
February 25, 2021
Ricardo Bustos Ramirez Chip-scale optical to RF link via harmonic injection locking Due to their highly stable timing characteristics, optical frequency combs have become instrumental in applications ranging from spectroscopy to ultra-wideband optical interconnects, high-speed signal processing, and exoplanet search. Furthermore, optical frequency combs serve as the main gear to create the most precise time-keeping…
February 18, 2021
When Peter Delfyett first fell in love with science during elementary school, he imagined he would grow up to be a paleontologist. Instead, the Pegasus Professor of optics and photonics has spent his career developing futuristic technology. From lasers that are used to cut Gorilla Glass for Samsung phones to fiber-optic cable technology that allows the internet…
February 2, 2021
The history and tradition of excellence at CREOL, College of Optics and Photonics, is detailed at length in a new publication from Information Display, the official magazine of the Society for Information Display. The article appears in the January/February edition, and charts CREOL’s origins in the 1980s as former Florida Gov. Bob Graham’s vision for…
January 28, 2021
A faculty member and an alumnus are among the newest class of fellows named by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). The honor goes to Professor Axel Schülzgen, Ph.D., who studies and specializes in fiber optics. He is already a fellow in the Optical Society of America; his awards at UCF include the…
January 28, 2021
The boundaries of basic physics continue to be tested in the laboratory of Professor Ayman Abouraddy, Ph.D., with newly published research demonstrating the feasibility of accelerating light packets. The experimental realizations of accelerating optical pulses conducted by graduate student Murat Yessenov build on previous experiments that tuned the speed of light packets in free space…
January 20, 2021
Sarun Sumriddetchkajorn ’00, Ph.D., has built an impressive career in optics and photonics following his doctorate graduation in 2000. In an interview with CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, Sumriddetchkajorn shares his career path and advice for current students. (Answers edited for clarity and length.) CREOL: What started your path toward optics and photonics?…
January 14, 2021
By GENE KRUCKEMYER Three UCF researchers working on different projects have been awarded a total of about $1.3 million from the Department of Defense. The grants were part of the DOD awarding of $50 million to 85 institutions across the nation in the Fiscal Year 2021 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program. The recipients and their…
January 11, 2021
The depth of UCF’s research expertise is on full display in a recent compilation of the world’s top scholars — including 20 from CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics. The list in the journal PLOS Biology used a composite indicator, based on six citation metrics, to rank the top 2% scientists from a variety…