Biography
Paul Leisher is a leading authority on high-power semiconductor lasers with over twenty years of experience across industry, government research, and academia. He currently serves as Professor at the University of Central Florida (UCF) College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL) in Orlando, Florida and in a technical advisory role to the boards of several companies.
Prior to joining UCF, Dr. Leisher was Vice President of Research and Fellow at Luminar Technologies, where he was responsible for leading the company’s development of laser sources for LIDAR and at Freedom Photonics where he led the development of the world’s highest brightness laser diodes. Dr. Leisher held previous positions as Chief Engineer for Diode Lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Associate Professor of Physics and Optical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Manager of Advanced Technology at nLight Corporation. Dr. Leisher has worked as a consultant for numerous companies ranging from small domestic photonics startups to large multinational corporations in the automotive and industrial manufacturing fields.
He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois in 2007. He has authored/co-authored over 350 technical patents, journal articles, and conference presentations. Dr. Leisher serves on the technical committee of many conferences and is an active reviewer for most journals in the field. He served as co-chair of the SPIE Components and Packaging for Laser Systems Conference for ten years, the program track chair for the SPIE LASE Symposium Nonlinear Optics and Beam Guiding conferences for five years, and the program chair and general chair of the International Semiconductor Laser Conference (ISLC) in 2022 and 2024, respectively. Dr. Leisher is a senior member of SPIE and IEEE.
Awards & Honors
- 2023 – Optical Wireless and Fiber Power Transmission Conference – Plenary speaker “Progress in diffraction-limited high power, high efficiency diode lasers operating at eyesafe wavelengths for wireless power transmission, optical communication, and LIDAR”
- 2018 – IEEE International Semiconductor Laser Conference – Plenary speaker “Opportunities in Semiconductor Laser Technology for Meeting the Requirements of Future High Energy Laser Missions”
- 2015 – NASA Early-Stage Innovation Award “Integrated tapered active modulators for high efficiency Gbps PPM laser transmitter PICs”
- 2007 – University of Illinois Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award
Research Group
The High-Power Diode Laser Research Group (HPDLRG) at CREOL focuses on the research and development of the world’s highest-power, highest-efficiency, and highest-brightness semiconductor lasers. Our work aims to identify and quantify the fundamental limits of diode laser performance by investigating the underlying physics of operation through carefully designed experiments, supported by simulation and modeling when appropriate. The resulting insights are applied to the design and fabrication of novel devices that mitigate these limitations and establish new performance milestones.
We investigate a broad range of semiconductor laser architectures and geometries, including edge emitters, distributed feedback lasers, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, and other light-emitting semiconductor devices. Our capabilities span epitaxial and chip-level design and simulation, high-power photonic device wafer fabrication, advanced packaging, inspection, characterization, and lifetime testing.
By advancing high-power semiconductor laser technology, our research enables progress across applications ranging from established fields—such as remote sensing, optical communications, artificial intelligence, optical power beaming, and advanced manufacturing—to frontier areas including directed-energy systems, laser wakefield acceleration, and inertial confinement fusion energy.
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Alumni
PhD
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MS
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