Joseph E. Ford
Office: 3405 Engineering Building Unit 1
Mailing Address:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
9500 Gilman Drive, Mail Code 0407
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0407
Email: jeford@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-7891
Fax: (858) 534-1225
Background
Joseph Ford received a B.Sc. degree in physics from UC Los Angeles in
1983, and Masters degrees in laser physics at the University of British
Columbia and in optical engineering at Rochester's Institute of Optics. In
January 1992 he received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering/applied
physics from UC San Diego for studies in parallel optical interconnects using phase
and wavelength multiplexed photorefractive crystals. Dr. Ford became an
Assistant Research Scientist at UCSD working on polarization- and wavelength-selective
computer-generated holograms, then joined data storage startup Call/Recall
where he demonstrated image storage in a doped-polymer cube using
two-wavelength two-photon recording.
From 1994-2000, Dr. Ford was a member of the Advanced Photonics Research Department of Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, NJ. Dr. Ford led a Bell Labs research team to demonstrate many of the first micromechanical (MEMS) telecom components including the first MEMS dynamic spectral equalizer and wavelength add/drop switch. He also worked on the “AMOEBA” datacom network with MQW modulators integrated with CMOS electronics and interconnected through single mode fiber using femtosecond laser source. In March 2000, Dr. Ford joined telecom startup Optical Micro-Machines, where he lead the technical design of a large beamsteering crossconnect development effort, and eventually became Chief Scientist. In January 2002, Dr. Ford started Modern Optics, an optical technology development company. In December 2002, Dr. Ford joined the UCSD Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty, where he will continue to do research on intelligent optical devices and subsystems.
Research Interests
·
Resonant
nano-scale optics (micro-opto-mechanical and switched photonic bandgap devices)
using electro-optic, electromagnetic and/or electrostatic actuation.
·
Hybrid
integration and optomechanical packaging of free-space and waveguide optical
devices with electronic control circuitry.
·
Optical
networks with local monitoring and autonomous control, such as
wavelength-multiplexed transmission with adaptive amplitude and passband
shaping.
·
More generally,
applications of physical optics to data storage, optoelectronic computing and
telecommunications.
Examples:
MEMS
Overview, Wavelength Add/Drop
Switch, Dispersion Compensator,
Dynamic Spectral Equalizer
Related
internet links
2000 IEEE International Conference on Optical MEMS (Host General Chair)
Bell Labs hyperlinked explanation of optical MEMS
Lucent press release on MEMS add/drop switch
Fiber Optics Product News article on OMM crossconnects
2002 Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Special Issue on Optical MEMS (Co-Editor)
Publications
More than 100 journal and conference papers and 35 US patents (link to full list doc html) including:
· Wavelength add/drop switching using tilting micromirrors (PDF, 549K)
Ford, Aksyuk, Bishop & Walker, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology 17, 904-911, 1999.
· Dynamic spectral power equalization using micro-opto-mechanics (PDF, 95K)
Ford & Walker, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters 10, 1440-1442, 1998.
· A tunable dispersion compensating MEMS all-pass filter (PDF, 83K)
Madsen, Walker, Ford. Goossen, Nielson & Lenz, IEEE Phot. Tech. Lett. 12, 651-653, 2000.
· The AMOEBA network: an optoelectronic switch for multiprocessor networking using dense-WDM Krishnamoorthy, Ford, et al, IEEE J. Sel. Topics in Quant. Elec. 5, 261-275, 1999. (PDF, 874K)
· Optoelectronic-VLSI packaging with polarization-selective computer generated holograms
Xu, Fainman, Ford & Krishnamoorthy, Optics Letters 22, 1095-1097, 1997.
· Wavelength-selective planar holograms
Ford, Xu & Fainman, Optics Letters 21, 80-82 1996.
· Reconfigurable array interconnection by photorefractive correlation
Ford, Fainman & Lee, Applied Optics 33, 6363-6377, 1994.
· Multiplex holography in SBN:60 with applied field
Ford, Taketomi, Bize, Neurgaonkar, Fainman & Lee, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 9, 1183-1192, 1992.
· Incremental
recording for photorefractive hologram multiplexing
Taketomi, Ford, Sasaki, Ma, Fainman & Lee, Optics Letters 16, 1774-1776, 1991.
· Time
integrating interferometry using photorefractive fanout
Ford, Fainman & Lee, Optics Letters 13, 856-858, 1988.
Last Updated: 1/10/03