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Promising field of photonics gets boost from $50 million gift to Stanford, Duke
High-tech entrepreneur Michael J. Fitzpatrick and his wife, Patty, will donate $25 million each to Stanford and Duke universities to establish new centers for advanced photonics, the presidents of both institutions announced Wednesday.
Engineers say photonics, a technology that melds light with electronics, is at a stage of development similar to where electronics was in the 1950s. It promises high-speed, broadband fiberoptic Internet communications for use in next generation applications in education, medicine, entertainment and commerce.
"We're moving from an electronic world to an optical world," Michael Fitzpatrick said. "We want to help create at Duke and Stanford the world's finest centers for photonics, which we hope will coalesce universities, industry and government to enable the full attainment of the potential of optics."
But right now a critical shortage of trained photonics engineers endangers progress. "The problem is going to become increasingly severe as optics plays a role of growing importance in the future," Fitzpatrick said. The couple's gift addresses that shortfall by creating centers of research excellence to "attract great students and great faculty with great labs, advanced curricula and industry internships."
Michael Fitzpatrick is the former chairman, chief executive officer and president of E-TEK Dynamics Inc., a leading manufacturer of fiberoptic components, instruments and systems for the telecommunications and cable television industries. He has served as CEO of Network Systems Corp. and president and CEO of Pacific Telesis Enterprises. He joined E-TEK Dynamics in 1997 as president and CEO, and was named chairman in 1999. In June 2000, E-TEK merged with JDS Uniphase Corp. in the second-largest merger in the history of the telecommunications industry.
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Photonics is technology that generates and harnesses light, whose smallest discrete quantity is the photon. It is built upon optics, a field encompassing the generation and propagation of light, and optoelectronics, the technology through which photons interact with electrons. But its applications -- information processing, sensing and carrying information and high-speed communication over long distances -- go a step beyond optics.
The market potential for photonics is staggering. Sales of optoelectronic equipment are expected to reach $34 billion in 2006, according to industry analyst Electronicast. Internet growth, deregulation of the telephone industry, video and teleconferencing all fuel this growth.
"The photonics business is growing faster than Microsoft grew," said Miller. "It's increasing in capacity and capabilities faster than Moore's Law." (Moore's Law says that the number of transistors that can be packed on a computer chip -- an indicator of performance -- will double every 18 to 24 months.) "The major driving application is optical networks used to send data over any distance."
Said Johnson at Duke: "Optical fibers will ultimately be capable of transmitting 'terabits' (trillion bits of data) per second -- exceeding the total traffic on the Internet today. Advances in network capacity through photonics will enable instant availability of whole libraries of information, high-definition video on demand, three-dimensional multi-sensory displays and real-time 'telepresence' by which people can immerse themselves in distant environments for remote surgery." |
