Larry Coldren

Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering

805-893-4486

coldren [at] ece [dot] ucsb [dot] edu

Institute Role
Member of Electronics & Photonics Solutions Group

Role in Affiliated Centers
Director of the Optoelectronics Technology Center; Executive Committee Member of the Solid-State Energy & Lighting Center; Member of the Interdisciplinary Center for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors

Research
Larry Coldren’s research currently focuses on components and fabrication techniques for III-V optoelectronic integrated circuits, including vertical-cavity lasers and widely tunable lasers for applications to optical switching and noiseless amplification. He is active in developing new photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) technology, including the underlying materials growth and fabrication techniques. In recent years, he has been involved in the creation of efficient all-epitaxial indium phosphide- (InP) based and high-modulation speed gallium arsenide- (GaAs) based VCSELs as well as a variety of InP-based PICs incorporating numerous optical elements for widely-tunable integrated transmitters, receivers, and wavelength converters operating up to 40 Gb/s.

Biography
Larry Coldren is the Fred Kavli Professor of Optoelectronics and Sensors at UC Santa Barbara. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1972. After 13 years in the research area at Bell Laboratories, he joined UC Santa Barbara in 1984 where he now holds appointments in Materials and Electrical & Computer Engineering, and is Director of the Optoelectronics Technology Center. In 1990 he co-founded Optical Concepts, later acquired as Gore Photonics, to develop novel VCSEL technology; and in 1998 he co-founded Agility Communications, later acquired by JDSU, to develop widely-tunable integrated transmitters. Coldren has authored or co-authored over 1000 journal and conference papers, 7 book chapters, 1 textbook, and has been issued 63 patents. He has presented dozens of invited and plenary talks at major conferences, he is a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA, and IEE, the recipient of the 2004 John Tyndall and 2009 Aron Kressel Awards, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.