About

Y. Fainman is a Cymer Professor of Advanced Optical Technologies in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He received his M.Sc and Ph.D degrees from Technion, Israel in 1979 and 1983, respectively. Since 1990, he has directed the research of the Ultrafast and Nanoscale Optics group at UCSD, making pioneering contributions to utilizing near field optical phenomena in inhomogeneous and meta-materials, nanophotonics and plasmonics, nonlinear optics of femtosecond pulses, and non-conventional imaging. His research applications target information technologies and biomedical sensing. Fainman has led large-scale multidisciplinary projects, including directing a project on “Photonic Imaging Networks” supported by the Focused Research Initiative program of BMDO, and has been involved in DARPA's OptoCenters, Si Phaser, and NACHOs programs. He is currently a Deputy Director of NSF’s Engineering Research Center known as the Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN). His research interests include near field optical science and technology compatible with CMOS manufacturing, nanoscale resonant optical structures, nanoscale lasers, plasmonic nanostructures for electromagnetic field localization, optofluidics technology, optical signal processing with femtosecond laser pulses, quantum cryptography and quantum information processing, and multidimensional imaging. Fainman has contributed over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts and more than 350 conference presentations.

Research topics

• Computer science
• Optics
• Optoelectronics
• Materials science
• Computer network

Selected publications

• Nanoscale Engineering Optical Nonlinearities and Nanolasers (Presentation Video)

  Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2014-09-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Dense photonic integration requires miniaturization of materials, devices and subsystems, including passive components (e.g., engineered composite metamaterials, filters, etc.) and active components (e.g., lasers, modulators, detectors). This paper discusses passive and active devices that recently have been demonstrated in our laboratory, including monolithically integrated short pulse compressor utilized with silicon on insulator material platform and design, fabrication and testing of nanolasers constructed using metal-dielectric-semiconductor resonators confined in all three dimensions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A 10 µs Hybrid Optical-Circuit/Electrical-Packet Network for Datacenters

  2013-01-01 · 32 citations

  article

  Abstract: We built and evaluated a hybrid electrical-packet/optical-circuit network for datacenters using a 10 µs optical circuit switch using wavelength-selective switches based on binary MEMs. This network has the potential to support large-scale, dynamic datacenter workloads.

  PublisherDOI

• All manuscripts, correspondence and communication should be directed to IEEE/EDS Publications Office

  2010-01-01

  article
  Publisher

• Quartzite: A Campus-Scale Hybrid Networking Infrastructure

  2008-02-01 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Quartzite is a hybrid wavelength - packet switched network on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. One of the key goals is to enable reconfigurations of the network at the physical (fiber, wavelength) and logical level (VLAN and routed) to support bandwidth intensive applications, non-standard protocols and other experiments that are usually incompatible with "production" networks. The structure of Quartzite is to connect laboratories on campus to a hybrid network core consisting of a standard, production switch router, and all-optical switch, and DWDM wavelength-selective switch (WSS). All components of Quartzite (except a custom-built WSS) are available as commodity parts. Most links feeding into the core are 10 Gigabit/s Ethernet (long reach grey, and C-band DWDM) with a smaller number of 1 gigabit/s links. More than 0.5 Terabit/s is currently provisioned to connect layer2 switches and directly-connected computing or storage endpoints. The entire infrastructure (including connected endpoints) can be reconfigured to suit the needs of specific experiments. The all-optical switching and wavelength switching are signal agnostic allowing non-ethernet transports to utilize the network/fiber infra-structure.

  PublisherDOI

• Nanophotonics: sensing with surface plasmon polaritons

  SPIE Newsroom · 2006-01-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The OptIPuter, Quartzite, and Starlight projects: a campus to global-scale testbed for optical technologies enabling LambdaGrid computing

  OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest. Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2005. · 2005-01-01 · 18 citations

  articleSenior author

  Dedicated optical connections have significant advantages over shared Internet connections. The OptIPuter project (www.optiputer.net) uses medical and earth sciences imaging as application drivers. Quartzite (UCSD) and Starlight (Chicago) create unique combinations of OEO routers and OOO and wavelength-selective optical switches.

  PublisherDOI

• Nanophotonic materials and devices for optical system integration

  International Quantum Electronics Conference · 2004-05-17

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Nanophotonic materials and devices are used to construct birefringent, dispersive and resonant materials, photonic crystals with defects for spectral filtering and field localization to enhance nonlinearities. Compatibility with standard nanofabrication techniques allows on-chip optical system integration.

  Publisher

• Fabrication and characterization of GaAs-based space-variant inhomogeneous media for polarization control at 10.6 μm

  Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2004-10-08 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Approaches to create radially and azimuthally polarized light beams usually suffer from issues of integration difficulty and system complexity. In this research, we apply a compact design of space-variant inhomogeneous media (SVIM), providing an even more compact solution with relatively higher conversion efficiency. The device we utilize to convert linear polarization at the wavelength of 10.6 μm to radial/azimuthal polarization is fabricated on a single GaAs substrate, using space-variant subwavelength periodic structure with locally varying form birefringence. Unlike previous approach, this subwavelength periodic structure is designed to be relatively deep in order to introduce a pi phase shift between the TE and the TM components of the input light, and therefore to locally rotate the incident linearly polarized light to the radial/azimuthal direction. To realize the deep space-variant form birefringent structure, we utilize standard photolithography on a GaAs substrate, followed by chemically assisted ion beam etching (CAIBE), rendering an etch profile with high aspect-ratio (6:1) as required by the original design. An optical characterization at 10.6 μm shows a close match between the measured and the theoretical polarization distribution. With proper control of the etch profile it shows that the subwavelength structure also serves as an anti-reflection coating at the sample surface.

  PublisherDOI

• Propagation of ultrashort pulses in multimode fiber in space and time

  Optics Express · 2003-06-30 · 18 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We perform 3D cross-correlation measurements of the optical field distribution resulting from an ultrashort pulse propagating in 6 meters of multimode fiber. Spatial amplitude and phase distributions of the optical field at the output of the fiber are measured using a time-gated spatial heterodyne interferometer as a function of time delay between the signal and the reference optical fields. We show that the measured signal represents an approximation to the optical impulse response of the multimode fiber.

  PublisherDOI

• Retinal imaging with a low-cost micromachined membrane deformable mirror

  Journal of Biomedical Optics · 2002-01-01 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  PURPOSE: To study the retina in normal subjects with a high-resolution imaging system using adaptive optics for wave front aberration correction. METHODS: We used a low-cost 37-element micromachined membrane deformable mirror (MMDM) with a continuous membrane as the reflective surface. A Hartmann-Shack wave front sensor with cooled charge coupled device camera was used to measure the wave front aberration. Zernike polynomials were used to describe the wave front shape. We developed a mirror control system to compensate for wave aberrations. We tested this instrument in normal subjects. RESULTS: We were able to image the retina in monochromatic laser light and document the increase in resolution. While it is hard to estimate the exact size of the smallest structures in the image, we were able to subjectively grade the image quality. The system is able to compensate for higher order aberrations present in the human eye. CONCLUSION: The capabilities of correcting ocular aberrations are limited by the number of adjustable elements in the mirror and the deflection range of the surface. The advantage of the MMDM system is its low cost when compared with other adaptive optics solutions such as piezodriven mirrors and spatial light modulators. This technique may allow for improved resolution for clinical fundus photography.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sing H. Lee

  University of California System

  4 shared

• Joseph E. Ford

  University of California, San Diego

  4 shared

• D. Bize

  Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales

  2 shared

• Larry Smarr

  University of California, San Diego

  2 shared

• Pang-Chen Sun

  2 shared

• Samar K. Saha

  2 shared

• Consuelo Gonzalo‐Martín

  1 shared

• Y. T Aur

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Technion, Israel

  1983

• M.S.

  Technion, Israel

  1979

Awards & honors

• Miriam and Aharon Gutvirt Prize, Technion, Haifa, Israel (19…
• Lady Davis Fellowship (2006)
• Brown award (2006)