Meet the Lab

Some of the current members (and friends) of FORGE Lab as of October 2023.
Pictured (left to right): Zhichao (Chris) Jiang, Michael Rizk, Siyuan Wang, Pete Dragic, Amiya Kumar (back), Mingye Xiong (front), Michael Gachich (back), Alex Pietros (front), Shengsheng Wang, Jenny Campbell, Nick Weir, Henry Beaulieu

Professor Peter D. Dragic

My research and design methodology of optical fibers relies heavily on a highly interdisciplinary approach that marries waveguide engineering and materials science. We owe many of the amazing capabilities of optical fiber to the pioneering work of materials scientists, whose efforts resulted in the mass-production of the low-loss optical fibers which connect our modern world. Soon after the development of the first low loss fiber in the 1970’s, waveguide designers were inspired to develop a wide range of fiber structures that enhance the capabilities of fiber-based systems. Well-known examples include dispersion shifted and tailored fibers, polarization maintaining fibers, and ‘holey’ (or micro- and nano-structured) fibers, to name a few. As such, optical waveguide design (predominantly utilizing silica as the material medium) has traditionally driven most, but not all, advancement in the field of optical fiber technology, with the materials science aspects becoming largely relegated to small niche applications. Today, this practice continues, and hence fiber and fiber laser development now advances only incrementally.

It is precisely this apparent technological stagnation that has inspired my team and I to recognize that materials science can help solve many of the challenges and limitations which waveguide design alone could not. Once we recognized that the aforementioned deleterious phenomena in optical fiber systems relate to a controllable material constant or coefficient, many of which can take on zero- or near-zero-values, it became clear that the performance limiters can be removed simply by prohibiting the unwanted interaction from ever taking place. In short, we have learned how to design these materials systems to achieve optical performance never before seen from optical fibers. This is accomplished through the zeroing or minimization of the material constants that drive the unwanted deleterious processes.

ECE Courses Taught

  • ECE 329 - Fields and Waves I
  • ECE 340 - Semiconductor Devices
  • ECE 460 - Optical Imaging
  • ECE 465 - Optical Communications Systems
  • ECE 466 - Optical Communications Lab
  • ECE 495 - Photonic Device Laboratory
  • ECE 598 - Fiber Photonics

ENG Courses Taught

  • ENG 198 - Special Topics
  • ENG 298 - Special Topics
  • ENG 491 - Cubesat 2
  • ENG 491 - Nanosatellite Design Build 1
  • ENG 498 - User-Oriented Collaborative Design

Current Members

Graduate Student:
Alex Pietros

Degree: PhD|ECE
Previous Education:
• BS|EE 2019 from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Current Research:
• Investigation of nonlinear visible-light fluorescence in BaF2 and other passive alkaline-earth fluorosilicate fibers from NIR pumping.
• Investigation of photo-elasticity in increasing concentrations of germania-doped (GeO2) telecom-grade optical fibers.
• Examination of Yb3+-doped fibers with varying concentrations of undesirable Yb2+ to understand quenching limitations on the scaling of high-power fiber lasers
Awards:
• 2023 Nick and Katherine Holonyak, Jr. Graduate Student Award
• 2019 Sloan Scholar of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. (MPHD) Program
External Links:
Google Scholar - Google Scholar | LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Graduate Student:
Jenny Campbell

Degree: PhD|Physics
Previous Education:
• MS|EE 2020 from Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.
• BA|Japanese 2015 from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Current Research:
• Investigations of novel rare earth-doped optical fibers
• Development of fibers doped with erbium nanoparticles
• Probing sources of RF phase noise in Yb fiber amplifiers
• Modeling low dn/dT helical core optical fiber for temperature sensing
External Links:
Google Scholar - Google Scholar | LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Graduate Student:
Siyuan Wang

Degree: MS/PhD|ECE
Previous Education:
• BS|EE 2021 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Illinois.
Current Research:
• Investigation on tailoring Brillouin scattering spectrum in optical fibers
• Polarization dependent low quantum defect lasing and amplification based on Yb-doped CALGO crystal
• Modification of rare earth spectroscopy through thermal annealing
• Anti-Stokes fluorescence cooling in optical fibers
Awards:
• 2024 Nick and Katherine Holonyak, Jr. Graduate Student Award
External Links:
Google Scholar - Google Scholar | LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Graduate Student:
Michael Gachich

Degree: MS/PhD|ECE
Previous Education:
• BS|Physics 2023 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Illinois.
Current Research:
• Fabrication of a sodium laser for the TOMEX-Plus rocket utilizing Raman amplification.
• Investigation of erbium doped nanoparticle fibers for shorter erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA).
External Links:
Google Scholar - Google Scholar | LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Amiya Kumar

Degree: BS|Comp. E 2024
Current Research:
• Assistance in the measurement of photoelasticity and the thermo-optic coefficient for various fibers
• Temperature control verification for the seeder laser of a rocket LiDAR for atmospheric measurements in the sodium layer
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Michael Norlander

Degree: BS|Physics 2024
Current Research:
• Upper-state lifetime measurements for highly doped ytterbium fibers.
• Absorption and emission measurements in Er-doped fibers with novel compositions.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Zhichao Jiang

Degree: BS|ECE 2024
Current Research:
• Assisted in Brillouin frequency measurements to understand the impact of built-in stress at the core cladding interface of commercial fibers.
• Measured the upper-state lifetimes for ytterbium-doped fiber with varying concentrations of Yb2+ to understand quenching contributions due to these undesired ions.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Shengsheng Wang

Degree: BS|ECE 2024
Current Research:
• Multiple photodarkening measurements on both traditional and polarization maintained Yb-doped fibers.
• Absorption measurements on various fibers of novel rare-earth dopant concentrations.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Michael Rizk

Degree: BS|EE & Math 2025
Current Research:
• Timing characteristics for the power-on sequence of a 75 kW fiber laser serving as the pump of a sodium LiDAR system
• Characterization of an 1178 nm laser diode operating as the signal seed for the same sodium LiDAR.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Student:
Ann Luo

Degree: BS|EE 2025
Current Research:
• Assisting in the on-going investigation of rare-earth doped nanoparticle fibers
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Lab Alumni

These are the students who have completed their degrees and left the lab!
We are proud of them all and wish them the best in all their endeavors.

Graduate Alum:
Alex Vonderhaar

Degree: MS|ECE 2021
Thesis Title: Detailed Study of Er:YAG-Derived Optical Fiber
Previous Education:
• BS|EE & BME (2017) from Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Completed Research:
• Investigation of Er:YAG fibers.
• Investigation of clustering and quenching effects for Er:YAG fibers.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Graduate Alum:
Guanyi Pan

Degree: MS|ECE 2020
Thesis Title: Determination of thermo-optic coefficient for B2O3 and GeO2 co-doped optical silica fiber
Previous Education:
• BS|EE (2018) from Tianjin University, P.R. China.
Completed Research:
• Thermo-optic coefficient (TOC) for B2O3 in optical silica fiber.
• Spectroscopy properties for highly doped Erbium doped fiber.
Awards:
• Graduate Second Place Poster in 6th Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and Their Applications.
External Links:
Google Scholar - Google Scholar

Undergraduate Student:
Henry Beaulieu

Degree: BS|Mat. SE 2024
Current Research:
• Assisted in the pulsed excitation measurement of luminescent defect fibers
• Took power measurements for the optimization of a Yb-doped fiber amplifier (YbDFA)
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Alum:
Jake Rosenbaum

Degree: BS|ECE 2023
Research:
• Assited with passive alkaline earth fluorosilicate investigation through absorption measurements across the visible and NIR.
• Absorption, spontaneous emission, and upperstate lifetime measurements across a wide range of active fibers (typically doped with Yb3+ and Er3+).
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Alum:
Brian Hsieh

Degree: BS|EE 2018
Research:
• Initial construction of a mode-locked fiber laser to assist in the measurement of various non-linear effects in novel fibers.
• Characterized visible upconversion luminescence in custom erbium doped fibers.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate:
Kacper Rebeszko

Degree: BS|MatSE 2022
Research:
• Took thermo-optic coefficient measurements for fibers with varying concentrations of germania in the core.
• Measured visible fluorescense from novel flouride fibers with phase-separated cores from a molten-core draw method.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Alum:
Liam Ackerman

Degree: BS|ECE 2021
Research:
• Took test measurements investigating Random Lasing Phenomena.
• Investigated characteristics behind integrated fiber lenses.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Alum:
Maxim Lunin

Degree: BS|Eng. Physics 2021
Research:
• Determined the free spectral range (FSR) of fiber optic cables under different conditions (temperature, strain, etc).
• Analyzed FSR data to determine how a fibers refractive index changes with environmental variance.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Undergraduate Alum:
Wynter Chen

Degree: BS|ECE 2021
Current Research:
• Investigated losses and scattering (Rayleigh vs Mie) in two-phase separated passive fluorosilicate optical fibers.
• Designed several free-space optic experiments to analyze losses and photodarkening in Yb-doped optical fibers.
External Links:
LinkedIn - LinkedIn