Diffractive and micro-optics have enabled a large number of applications in imaging, sensing, laser systems, and industrial machining. This is largely due to the development of single step lithography methods that can be easily incorporated into conventional integrated circuit fabrication facilities. As the technology has gained acceptance, novel applications on integrated functionality have driven the requirements from surface relief structures into more complex structures exploiting spatial, spectral, and polarization properties. In order to realize components with these unique aspects, one must concurrently engineer the fabrication process with the desired optical functionality; thereby, enabling one to create engineered 3D Meta-Optics for spatial, spectral, and polarization control. Some of the challenges involve the engineering of optical properties at the sub-wavelength scale with those at the micro-scale. This talk will summarize the design and fabrication issues associated with 3D optics and their potential benefits in passive and active devices.
Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Optics and Electrical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Associate Director of the Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications. He was previously an Associate Professor at the College of Optics and Photonics/CREOL at the University of Central Florida, where he now holds a courtesy appointment. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of Research and Development at Digital Optics Corporation. Dr. Johnson also serves as the current Program Director in the Electronics and Photonics Device Technologies group in the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division of the National Science Foundation. His responsibilities include the management and oversight of Photonic Device Programs in the ECCS Division.
Dr. Johnson's research spans the area of micro-optics and nano-photonics, with particular emphasis on active and passive photonic devices. Some of his major innovations include the development of methods for fabricating 3-Dimensional micro- and nano-optics, high power lasers, novel integrated fiber beam shaping devices utilizing multimode interference, sensors, fiber lasers, data communications, and passive optics for spectral and polarization filtering. He has over 130 publications in the field with 11 issued patents and 3 pending. Dr. Johnson was a recipient of NSF's CAREER Award and has been funded by DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, and numerous industrial organizations.
Dr. Johnson currently serves on the Board of Directors for SPIE and has served on various committees for scholarship, conferences, and technical programs. He was also the previous Chair for the Optics in Information Science Division of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the former OSA Technical Group Chair for Holography and Diffractive Optics. He is currently a Topical Editor for Applied Optics and the previous Associate Editor for SPIE's Journal of MEMS. He is a Fellow of SPIE, Senior Member of IEEE and a member of OSA. Dr. Johnson has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, MS in Electrical Sciences from the University of Central Florida, and BS Physics from Purdue University.