Sasan Fathpour

Visiting Assistant Professor

Electrical Engineering Department

University of California, Los Angeles

RESEARCH SYNOPSIS

Sasan Fathpour's current research interests lie in the field of silicon photonics. He is pursuing research on active silicon devices based on nonlinear optical effects at UCLA. His latest accomplishment is the first demonstration of two-photon photovoltaic effect in silicon. This demonstration of energy harvesting in Raman amplifiers has been acknowledged as a breakthrough in the path towards integration of electronics and photonics on a common silicon chip. The work has received worldwide press coverage and won him the 2007 UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research.

His Ph.D. research at the University of Michigan was on fabrication, characterization, epitaxial growth, and modeling of In(Ga)As/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot lasers, with record high static and dynamic performances. He demonstrated temperature invariant operation (infinite characteristic temperature) in any semiconductor laser for the first time. His tunneling injection lasers are the fastest quantum dot lasers to date. At Michigan, he also conducted research on spin-polarized light sources based on diluted magnetic III-V semiconductors. He began his research career at the University of British Columbia where he worked on nitride heterojunction bipolar transistors.

BIOGRAPHY

Sasan Fathpour received the B.S. and M.A.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran in 1995 and the University of British Columbia, Canada in 2000, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2005. From 1995 to 1997, he was with Isfahan Optics Industry and was engaged in research and development of microelectronic circuits and digital signal processing systems in Pardisan Inc. in 1998. Since July 2005, he has been with the Optoelectronic Circuits and Systems Laboratory of UCLA. Dr. Fatrhpour is a co-author of about 50 journal and conference publications and one pending U.S. patent.

"May the right hand of Light guard and save you..."
From Epistles of Mani, Persian Philosopher of 3rd Century A.D.

last update: 09/14/07