 Thomas
G. Brown
Professor of Optics
Director, Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and
Engineering
Chair of Undergraduate Studies
Office: Wilmot 505
Phone: (585) 275-7816
E-mail: brown@optics.rochester.edu
Short Biography
Professor Brown began his work in optics and optoelectronics
in 1978 as an optical fiber systems designer at GTE Laboratories.
While there, he wrote the systems modeling software which
was used to design the first live-traffic 1.3 µm optical
fiber telephone link. Since that time, he has had consultancies
and technical collaboration with companies such as IBM,
Corning Inc., ABB Kent-Taylor, Amp, Rockwell, Rochester
Gas and Electric, and Emerson Corporation, along with several
law firms and many of the Industrial Associates of the Institute
of Optics.
His doctoral dissertation,
carried out at the Institute of Optics, under the supervision
of Professor Dennis Hall, was in the area of silicon-based
optoelectronics with particular emphasis on mechanisms for
extrinsic light emission in silicon. Since joining the Institute
faculty in 1987, Professor Brown has taught on both the
Graduate and Undergraduate levels, established the Undergraduate
Honors Research Program, and currently oversees an undergraduate
program of approximately 80 students. He received a College
of Engineering award for excellence in undergraduate teaching
in 1994. His professional affiliations have included the
Optical Society of America, SPIE, and the Materials Research
Society. He has served as refereee for numerous professional
journals, has served on the Technical Program Committee
for the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Photonics
West, Optics and Photonics (the annual meeting of SPIE),
Opto-Northeast, and Frontiers in Optics (the annual meeting
of the OSA); he is currently on the editorial board for
the web-based journal Optics Express. He has authored over
60 publications, 10patents,3 book chapter,was an editor
for the four-volume Optics Encyclopedia, and served
as co-contributor of articles entitled Light and
Polarized Light for the 2008 edition of the World
Book Encyclopedia.
Professor Brown is a Fellow
of the Optical Society of America, is President of the Rochester
Local Chapter of the Optical Society of America, and currently
serves as the Chair of the Polarization Engineering technical
group of the OSA. In 2006, he was invited to spend three
months at the University of Sydney as the Denison Distinguished
Visiting Professor.
Research
Thomas G. Brown has been on the faculty of the Institute
of Optics since July of 1987, has held the rank of full
professor since March of 2008, and currently serves as chair
of undergraduate studies and director of the Robert E. Hopkins
Center for Optical Design and Engineering. While at Rochester,
he has conducted research in semiconductors, optoelectronics,
optical fiber microstructures, optical polarization, and
optical engineering. His early research focused on frequency-stable
semiconductor laser design and silicon-based waveguide technology,
including the first experimental observation of all-optical
switching in a nonlinear Bragg reflector. His publications
have twice (1993 and 2000) been cited among the best optics-related
research by Optics and Photonics News. Professor
Brown's recent research activities have included: 1) Focusing
and coherence properties of polarization vortex beams; 2)
Optical vortices induced by stress birefringent elements;
3) High Q resonators in SOI waveguides; 4) Modeling and
characterization of photonic crystal fibers; 5) Optical
properties of quantum amplified isomers for photopolymers.
The work on polarization polymers had been applied to semiconductor
lithography and inspection, and single molecule imaging
[PRL 86, 5251 (2001)].
Research
Group home page
|
