Bowers Awarded HP Innovation Research Grant
John Bowers, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the UC Santa Barbara Institute for Energy Efficiency, has been named a recipient of a 2008 HP Labs Innovation Research Program grant. Bowers will collaborate with HP Labs, HP’s central research arm, on a research initiative focused on developing a CMOS compatible, hybrid silicon ring resonator laser that is compact, low threshold, and high speed, and that can be used in 10 Gbit/s interconnects on silicon substrates. Semiconductor ring resonator lasers are simple but very powerful components, which can be readily integrated with other optoelectronic devices and have large free spectral range (high Q). Ring lasers made on silicon are the ideal solution for a high speed low cost CMOS compatible optical engine.
HP reviewed more than 450 proposals from 200 universities in 28 countries. Bowers’ selection made UC Santa Barbara one of only 34 universities in the world to receive a 2008 Innovation Research grant. The HP Labs Innovation Research Program is designed to encourage open collaboration with HP Labs resulting in mutually beneficial, high-impact research. This year’s proposals were solicited on a range of topics within the five principal research themes at HP Labs—intelligent infrastructure, sustainability, information explosion, dynamic cloud services and content transformation.
“HP Labs’ selection of Bowers and UC Santa Barbara for a 2008 Innovation Award demonstrates outstanding achievement,” said Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of research at HP and director of HP Labs. “This will help accelerate HP Labs’ global research agenda in pursuit of scientific breakthroughs.”
