Ming C. Wu (Advisor)

3D imaging sensors have applications that span several industries and markets, from industry metrology, robotic control to autonomous vehicles. Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems provide high-resolution anti-interference distance and velocity measurements without fast electronics or high optical power but typically require expensive narrow-linewidth lasers with complex feedback circuits. Instead, we report on linearizing the laser chirp by using iterative learning pre-distortion of the laser drive waveform, thus reducing the need for...

Electronic and photonic integrated circuits use optics to overcome bottlenecks of microelectronics in bandwidth and power consumption. Silicon photonic devices such as optical modulators, filters, switches, and photodetectors have being developed for integration with electronics based on existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. An important building block of photonic devices is the optical microresonator.

On-chip whispering-gallery-mode optical resonators such as microdisks, microtoroids, and microrings have very small footprint, and thus...

Optical antennas have been widely used for variety of applications such as sensitive photodetection, efficient light emission, high-resolution imaging, heat-assisted magnetic recording, and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) because they can capture and focus propagating electromagnetic energy into subdiffraction-limited areas and vice versa. However, widespread application of optical antennas has been limited due to lack of appropriate methods for uniform and large area fabrication of antennas, as well as difficulty in achieving an efficient design with small mode volume (gap...