ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA & IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY May Meeting & Pizza Party ***IEEE/LEOS Distingished Lecturer*** Date: Thursday, 11 May 2000 Time: 6:30 PM pizza, 7:30 PM talk Place: National Institute of Standards and Technology 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO Room 1107 Title: Photonic Crystals and Photonic Microstructures: Technologies and Device Potential Professor Richard M De La Rue The University, Glascow Glascow, Scotland Abstract: My lecture will be concerned with various forms of photonic crystals, but mostly with photonic crystals created by microstructuring techniques and nanotechnology in thin, 'single-mode', optical waveguides. Because of their pre- eminent role in lasers and LEDs, the optical waveguides used for much of the work to be described are epitaxial III-V semiconductor heterostructures. Photonic crystals are interpreted as being regular structures exhibiting a large modulation of the refractive index and with periodicity in one-, two- or three-dimensions. The emphasis in the presentation will be on gaining a physical understanding of how photonic bandgap behaviour can appear in photonic crystals, leading on to various new device concepts. Leading-edge fabrication technology, in particular direct-write electron-beam lithography (EBL) and reactive ion etching (RIE), play an essential role in realising the photonic microstructures which become photonic crystals for light in the near infra-red and visible parts of the spectrum. I shall also discuss other technologies which are likely be useful in developing photonic crystals yet further - and some of the important technological challenges which remain as we head for the holy grails of 'threshold-less' lasers and much more efficient LEDs. Measurement techniques for the transmission, reflection and diffraction properties of waveguide photonic crystals and waveguide microcavities will be described, as well as techniques for observing the modified luminescence of photonic microstructure cavities. Measurement techniques have recently been developed for direct observation of much of the band structure of waveguide photonic crystals - and the new results that have emerged will be examined. Biography: Richard De La Rue was born in Reading, UK, in 1945. He graduated with BSc(Eng) Hons. in Electrical Engineering from University College London (UCL) in 1966, subsequently obtaining the M.A.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1968 and the PhD degree, also at UCL, in 1972. A paper based on his PhD work received the premium for the best paper published in Proc. IEE in 1972. In 1971, he was appointed as Lecturer in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow, becoming Senior Lecturer in 1982, Reader in 1985 and Professor of Optoelectronics in 1986. He spent a six month period at Bell Labs, Murray Hill N.J. USA, in 1978 and three months as a Monbusho/British Council sponsored lecturer at Tohoku University, Sendai Japan in 1980. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1989 and became a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, IEE (UK), in 1997, having been a Member since 1977. He is a member of the Optical Society of America (OSA) - and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). For six months in the winter of 1997-98 he was a visiting researcher at the Communications Research Laboratories of the Japanese ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in Koganei, Tokyo, Japan. For several months in 1998 he was chercheur associé au CNRS in the semiconductor research group (GES) at University of Montpellier II, in France. Richard De La Rue has contributed significantly to integrated optics research in glass-based waveguides, including the use of ion-exchange techniques. Such waveguides have been used in his more recent research on optical waveguide molecular sensors. Work on lithium niobate led to the first publications in the UK on waveguide devices (both electrooptic and acoustooptic) and some of the earliest waveguide devices in the world based on proton-exchange in lithium niobate. He was also involved in pioneering work on electron beam induced domain reversal to produce periodic structures for quasi-phase matched SHG. Other work has included fundamental studies of the proton-exchange process in both lithium niobate and lithium tantalate. Recent work has been concerned primarily with integration technology and optoelectronic devices based on III-V semiconductor quantum well heterostructures. Research has included quantum well intermixing processes in III-V semiconductors to shift the refractive index and absorption edge - and novel forms of DFB and DBR laser using deep surface gratings. He has also contributed to the development of ring geometry semiconductor lasers - particularly large diameter mode-locked devices. Following a period as leader of the optoelectronics research activity at Glasgow University, he has now shifted much of his research effort into the photonic bandgap structures and microcavities area, with involvement in several new multi-partner projects. A further area of current activity is phase masks for the production of photorefractive gratings in fibres. He has published more than 250 articles and papers in journals, as book chapters and as conference presentations. He has also held three patents, one of which was concerned with electrooptic beamsteering waveguide arrays. He was co-editor, with John Marsh, of 'Waveguide Optoelectronics', based on the 1990 NATO ASI held in Glasgow. He is an IEEE-LEOS distinguished lecturer for the year commencing 1st July 1999.