John Bowers, Professor of Materials and of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awareded the 2017 IEEE Photonics Award in honor of his pioneering research in silicon photonics, including hybrid silicon lasers, photonic integrated circuits, and ultra low-loss waveguides.
The IEEE Photonics Award recipient is selected annually by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) Photonics Society and is one of the most prestigious honors from IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organization.
“Silicon photonics has the potential to revolutionize photonics and electronics by enabling low-cost, high-volume manufacturing of optical interconnects with a path toward embedding high-capacity fiber optics on circuit boards and eventually on electronic chips,” said Bowers, who holds the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology at UCSB and is director of the campus’s Institute for Energy Efficiency. An internationally renowned authority on optoelectronics, Bowers has focused his expertise on silicon photonics and optoelectronics, with the goals of developing energy-efficient technology for the next generation of optical networks.
“This is a major award,” said Rod Alferness, dean of the UCSB College of Engineering, who received an IEEE Photonics Award in 2005, before coming to UCSB. “The IEEE Photonics Award is the most prestigious recognition of contributions to the field of photonics and optics. John Bowers’ work in integrated silicon photonics is leading the way to the future of electronics and telecommunications.”
Bowers, who came to UCSB in 1987, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of IEEE, Optical Society of America (OSA) and the American Physical Society. He is a recipient of the OSA Holonyak Prize, and the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award. He and colleagues received the 2007 Annual Creativity in Electronics Award for Most Promising Technology for the hybrid silicon laser. Bowers is also the advisor for the graduate student chapter of IEEE Photonics Society, voted 2016 Chapter of the Year.
