ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
                              &
           IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY


                        Jan. Meeting

Date:  Thursday, 18 Jan. 2001
Time:  7:00 PM refreshments, 7:30 PM talk
Place: National Institute of Standards and Technology
       325 Broadway, Boulder, CO
       Room 1107


Title: Vertical Cavity Lasers - New Light for the Information 
Age


       Dr. Kent D. Choquette
       Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
       University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
       choquett@uiuc.edu

       IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Lecturer



Abstract:

The infrastructure of the Information Age has to date relied 
upon advances in microelectronics to produce integrated 
circuits that are continually smaller, better, and cheaper.  
The emergence of photonics, where light rather than 
electricity is manipulated, is posed to further advance the 
Information Age. Central to the photonic revolution is the 
development of miniature light sources such as the vertical-
cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL).  Today, VCSEL 
manufacturing has been established to serve new datacom and 
telecom markets. Moreover, recent progress in microcavity 
physics, new materials, and fabrication technologies has 
enabled a new generation of high performance VCSELs.  This 
presentation will review commercial VCSELs and their 
applications as well as discuss recent VCSEL advances, 
including new wavelengths, device structures, and integration 
into novel microsystems.

Biography:

Kent D. Choquette received B.S. degrees in engineering 
physics and applied mathematics from the University of 
Colorado-Boulder in 1984 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 
materials science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 
1985 and 1990, respectively.  From 1990-92 he held a 
postdoctoral appointment at AT&T Bell Laboratories at Murray 
Hill.  In 1993 he joined Sandia National Laboratories in 
Albuquerque, NM where he pursued the design, fabrication, and 
characterization of VCSELs and other optoelectronic devices.  
He also investigated selective oxidation of AlGaAs alloys, 
its application to high performance VCSELs, and the 
development of hybrid optoelectronic integration 
technologies.  Starting in the fall of 2000, he joined the 
Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. in the University 
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Professor Choquette has 
authored over 100 publications and 2 book chapters, and has 
presented numerous invited talks and tutorials.  He is a 
member of IEEE, LEOS, and OSA.