Q&A with Richard Soref - Final Part

In the final part of the interview with Gazettabyte, Richard Soref talks about hybrid and monolithic integration, mid-infrared optics, how his photonics predictions made in a 2006 paper have fared, 2-micron-based optical communications, and his talk at OFC in March.

"In a rosy future, every smart phone, tablet, wrist watch, and hand-held device would contain one of these chemical-medical-physical sensors."

Richard Soref

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Q&A with photonics pioneer, Richard Soref - Part 1

Richard Soref has spent over 50 years researching photonics, contributing groundbreaking work in the areas of liquid crystals, silicon photonics and the broader topic of mid-infrared wavelengths and Group IV photonics. For 27 years he was employed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. He has also worked at the Sperry Research Center, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and is now a research professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

In part 1 of a two-part interview with Gazettabyte, he details his research interests, explains what is meant by Group IV photonics, and discusses why photonics has not matched the semiconductor industry in terms of integration, and how that could change. 

Optics is a seemingly small subset of physics but really optics is a huge field with a deep, variegated nature waiting to be discovered

Richard Soref

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