ECE Professor Kent Choquette is now a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Choquette's research has been used in the Internet, to provide the physical infrastructure for applications such as Facebook and Google and downloading movies.
Written by Jamal Collier, ECE ILLINOIS
ECE Professor Kent D Choquette is now a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Kent D Choquette
Choquette received the award on a snowy day in Boston this past February for his contributions to the science and technology of semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. According to a press release, the AAAS elevates individuals to this rank because of their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.
“It was an honor for me,” Choquette said. “The ceremony included lots of different disciplines of science, and a very diverse set people with different backgrounds. I met other scientists and faculty that I wouldn’t ordinarily meet.”
Choquette’s research has been used to provide the physical infrastructure for applications such as Facebook and Google and downloading movies.
Choquette is an Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and is looking at different ways to make lasers more efficient and faster.
“The application that made this research important to society, the demand for bandwidth, it hasn’t gone away,” Choquette said. “We need to make better performing lasers that operate at lower input power.”
It makes for good research for students to get involved in. Choquette is happy to have the capabilities to advance his research at the University of Illinois within the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory (MNTL).
“We have a unique opportunity to design, fabricate, and characterize photonic devices,” he said. “Not every university has a clean room facility so it’s a great benefit to have this research infrastructure.”
His students are able to work in the clean room inside MNTL to fabricate microcavity semiconductor lasers.
“It’s the students who turn lofty ideas into real things,” Choquette said.