Prof. Ding named Class of 1961 Professor

Yujie J. Ding, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been named Class of 1961 Professor. The award recognizes associate professors "who have shown distinction in teaching, research and service."

A specialist in optoelectronics, nonlinear optics and quantum electronics, Ding's specific research interests include the efficient generation, amplification, and detection of electromagnetic waves in the range from mid-infrared to millimeters (2-3,500 microns) as well as the efficient generation of blue and green light. He utilizes novel nanostructures, including quantum wells, self-assembled quantum wires and quantum-well dots, as well as nonlinear optical materials.

Ding has been working on the design, growth, fabrication, and testing of nanodevices based on novel structures. These devices include high-power semiconductor lasers and amplifiers, blue-light converters, widely-tunable THz sources, THz emitters and detectors, ultrabroad-bandwidth modulators, ultrastable mid-IR sources, frequency shifters, and power limiters with dramatically improved performance.

These devices can potentially be used to implement various systems for target tracking and pointing. They also have applications in pollution monitoring, identifying toxic chemicals, remote sensing, remote biological agent detection, mine detection, molecular spectroscopy, bio-medical imaging, security screening, satellite communication, protection of optical sensors, and optical communication.

Currently, Ding has two patents pending. One is for coherent blue-light generation in a single, partly periodically poled, potassium titanyl phosphate crystal. The other is for a new widely-tunable and coherent terahertz source implemented by using a gallium selenide crystal.

He is now expanding his research to biomedical areas, imaging, spectroscopy, and chemical analysis.

Ding has written more than 280 technical articles and served on numerous National Science Foundation panels. He has been a topical editor for Journal of the Optical Society of America B since 2001. He has also served as a committee member for "Ultrafast Phenomena in Semiconductors and Nanostructure Materials," SPIE Photonic West since 1999 and "Nonlinear Optics," OSA Quantum Electronics & Laser Science since last year.

His research has been supported by NSF, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Office of Naval Research, and the Army Research Lab.

Since joining the Lehigh faculty in 2002, Ding has taught three new courses: Semiconductor Lasers, Optoelectronic Devices, and Quantum Electronics.

Ding has also chaired the search committee for optoelectronics faculty positions and has served as a member of the committees searching for the director of the Center of Optical Technologies and the chair of the electrical and computer engineering department. He has also served as a member of the research committee for the Center of Optical Technologies since 2002.