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Research

My research interests center on

ultrafast laser spectroscopy
the physics of semiconductors
- generation and characterization of novels forms of matter under high-intensity laser excitation
- the generation and application of extremely short pulses of far-infrared light at semiconductor surfaces
- silicon luminescence
- semiconductor nanostructures
characterization of optical fibers

At Harvey Mudd College, I plan to develop a short-pulse laser facility to pursue these research interests and to make available to the Claremont science and engineering community a state-of-the-art femtosecond laser system for performing materials characterization via nonlinear optical techniques.

Follow the links for more information about these areas or drop by to discuss possible research projects.

Femtosecond Ti:Sapphire Laser

I plan to build a short-pulse solid-state laser system in Jacobs 104 to study carrier dynamics in semiconductor nanostructures and to probe buried semiconductor interfaces with the techniques of nonlinear optics. The laser will produce pulses of light in the near infrared region of the spectrum having a duration of ~60 femtoseconds (a femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second). It will be tunable to permit exploration of resonance phenomena in a variety of materials, and sufficiently intense to make accessible second-harmonic, third-harmonic, and other nonlinear optical techniques for studying the dynamics of photoexcited charge carriers in materials.

I am looking for one or two students with interest in optics and short-pulse laser, to help in designing the laser, ordering the components, building the laser, and characterizing its output. If you are interested, drop by my office any time, send me e-mail, or call. See my schedule if you are having trouble finding me.

Semiconductor nanostructures

A nanostructure is any structure fabricated with condensed matter having at least one dimension of a few nanometers or less. At JILA, I studied the luminescence properties of extremely thin layers of crystalline silicon made by oxidizing silicon-on-insulator substrates. A summary paper is nearly finished and will be posted soon.

Publications