Watch our exclusive prize lecture on creating a revolutionary miniature on-chip laser

Jelena Vuckovic, Jensen Huang Professor in Global Leadership for the School of Engineering at Stanford University, presented her ground-breaking research in the field of photonics and on-chip integrated pulsed laser at the IET Harvey Prize Lecture.

Chosen from a high calibre of candidates from across the world, Jelena was named winner of the £350,000 IET A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize in December 2019.

Jelena’s research focuses on the development of miniature Titanium:sapphire (Ti:sapph) lasers. On-chip integrated pulsed laser will revolutionise photonic technology and the applications that require these lasers, such as medicine, optical communications, quantum computing and self-driving cars. 

Currently Ti:sapph lasers are bulky, expensive, table-top lasers, which can be limiting to applications such as LIDAR and microscopy. Jelena and her team are aiming to create a miniature version, which would have a total volume smaller than a cubic centimetre. This would have a major impact on photonic technology and society, by decreasing the cost and footprint of such lasers.

The IET A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize, worth £350,000, is named after Dr A F Harvey who left a generous sum of money to the IET for a trust fund to be set up in his name. This legacy is dedicated to enhancing scientific research into the fields of Radar and Microwaves, Lasers and Optoelectronics, and Medical Engineering.