People

Executive Committee/Professors

Co-Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center. Professor of Materials and The Cree Professor in Solid State Lighting and Display. His research includes MOCVD, HVPE, and growth and device fabrication of light-emitters based on the wide-bandgap semiconductor indium gallium nitride (InGaN). He is the recipient of the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention of revolutionary new energy-saving light sources and the 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physics for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. He is named the 2015 Global Energy Prize recipient for the invention, commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology. Dr. Nakamura is also the co-founder of Soraa Inc. He was awarded a Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Tokushima in 1994.

Co-Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center. Professor of Materials and Electrical & Computer Engineering and The Mitsubishi Chemical Professor in Solid State Lighting & Display. His research areas are in MOCVD growth of wide-bandgap semiconductors (GaN-based) and their application to blue LEDs and laser and high power electronic devices.

Professor of the Materials Department and the first recipient of The Seoul Optodevice Chair in Solid State Lighting, focuses his research on the relationship between thin-film electronic materials growth (MOCVD and MBE), microstructure, and the relation between microstructure and physical properties. View Faculty Profile.

Umesh Mishra

Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and The Donald W. Whittier Chair. A recognized leader in the area of high-speed field effect transistors. His current research areas attempt to develop an understanding of novel materials and extend them into applications. He is the Director of the ONR MURI Center (IMPACT) on wide bandgap semiconductor based electronics.

Joined the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara as Professor of Computational Materials in 2004. His research interests lie in novel electronic materials, including wide-bandgap semiconductors (III-V nitrides, II-VI compounds, and oxides); the physics and chemistry of hydrogen interactions with solids, liquids, and molecular systems; and hydrogen in materials: storage and production (photoelectrochemical cells).

Executive Committee/Administrative

Participating Professors

John Bowers

Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency, and a member of the Technology Management Program (TMP). In July 2009, he was appointed to the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology. Professor Bowers' research interests are in energy efficiency and in the development of novel optoelectronic devices for the next generation of optical networks.

Professor of Materials and Electriclal & Computer Engineering Departments. His research currently focuses on components and fabrication techniques for III-V optoelectronic integrated circuits, including vertical-cavity lasers and widely tunable lasers.

Dr. Gordon focuses research on synthesis and characterization of nanoscale materials as well as the development of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) methods for optical, electrical, and mechanical interrogation of nanoscale systems found in different venues such as material science, microelectronics, catalysis, and biology. His current interests include: III-nitride nanostructures, micro/nano-LEDs; Near-field optical microscopy & plasmonics; Bio-inspired photonics; Microplasmas; Energy storage, magnetic, and catalytic materials; and Light-matter interactions & Spectroscopy. 

Herbert Kroemer

Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Materials Department. Professor Kroemer has received numerous national and international honors and awards for his work, most recently-and most notably-the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics," and the 2002 IEEE Medal of Honor.

Professor of Materials/Chemistry & Biochemistry and Co-Director of the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL). His research encompasses a number of areas in the chemistry of inorganic materials, including new ways of preparing materials, magnetism in inorganic solids, oxide and chalcogenide nanoparticles, chemical patterning of inorganic materials on large (micrometer) length scales, seeking clues from nature on how to make new high-performance materials, and finally, using first principles electronic structure calculations to predict new material properties.

Distinguished professor in the Materials Department. His research contributions to SSLEEC are in the area of blue laser diodes and micro cavity LEDs. Additionally he has made significant contributions to Auger theory, photonic crystals, and experimental verification of LED droop. 

Srabanti Chowdhury is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering (EE) and a Senior Fellow of Precourt Institute at Stanford. She leads the Widebandgap Lab at Stanford where her research focuses on the wideband gap (WBG) and ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) materials and device engineering for energy-efficient and compact system architecture for electronics including power RF and computation applications. Besides Gallium Nitride, her group is exploring Diamond for various active and passive electronic applications, particularly thermal management.

Srabanti received her M.S and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara working on Vertical GaN Switches. Srabanti received the DARPA Young Faculty Award, NSF CAREER, and AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) in 2015. In 2016 she received the Young Scientist award at the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors (ISCS). She is a senior member of IEEE and an alumni of NAE Frontiers of Engineering. She received the Alfred P. Sloan fellowship in Physics in 2020. To date, her work has produced over 6 book chapters, 90 journal papers, 110 conference presentations, and 26 issued patents. She serves the program committee of several IEEE conferences including IRPS and VLSI Symposium, and the executive committee of IEDM. She serves as the Associate Editor of Transaction Electron Devices as well as two committees under IEEE Electron Device Society (Compound Semiconductor Devices & Circuits Committee Members and Power Devices and ICs Committee). She is the Science Collaboration Director of the US Department of Energy Funded Energy Frontier Research Center, called ULTRA