Join KLA for lunch and an introduction to the company, its technologies and career opportunities.
]]>Secure an internship or job offer in one of the fastest growing and highest paying global sectors – optics and photonics!
Thanks to CREOL’s stellar international reputation, optics and photonics companies and national labs are hiring UCF students and alumni across all science, math, and engineering majors. If you want to help create the future of technology, then this career fair is where you need to be.
This fair is open to UCF students and alumni only
Register in advance by clicking HERE.
Professional attire is recommended. Professional suit, skirt or pantsuit, dress shirt with tie, or blouse, and dress shoes with socks or appropriate hosiery.
Bring up-to-date resumes!
Be Prepared! Visit the Dixon Career Development Center to:
Visit the Dixon Career Development Center website (www.career.ucf.edu) or dial 407-823-5000 for workshop dates and additional information.
]]>Learn about CREOL, eat pizza, tour high-tech labs, hear from students, meet with academic advisors, and get information about Florida’s only Bachelor’s Degree in Photonic Science and Engineering.
Advanced registration required. Register here.
]]>Title: The Science of Inverse Lithography: Discovery vs. Recovery
Abstract: As feature sizes in semiconductor fabrication shrink far below the wavelength of light used to print them, mask patterns no longer resemble the circuits they yield — they must be discovered, not merely designed. This talk explores this discovery challenge and the inverse-problem methodology required to solve it.
In optical processing, image recovery estimates an unknown object distribution from a blurred measurement taken through a known imaging system. Image discovery, by contrast, synthesizes an object distribution capable of producing a desired target image at the output of a known, distorting optical system. While both inverse problems can achieve super-resolution, each presents a distinct theoretical hurdle: uniqueness for recovery, and existence for discovery.
This talk focuses on inverse image synthesis and its application to photolithography under diffraction-limited conditions and high-contrast, nonlinear photoresist responses, utilizing both coherent and partially coherent illumination. I will review my early foundational research that established the mathematical principles of Inverse Lithography Technology (ILT) — work that has propelled widespread industrial adoption and received recent recognition.
About the speaker: Bahaa Saleh is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, where he served as Dean from 2009 to 2019. He previously held faculty and research positions at a number of institutions including Boston University (1994–2008, serving as Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1994–2007 and becoming Professor Emeritus in 2009), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1977–1994, serving as Chair of the ECE Department from 1990–1994), the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, Kuwait University, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, the University of California-Berkeley, and Columbia University.
His research contributions cover a broad range of topics in optics and photonics, such as statistical optics, nonlinear optics, quantum optics, and image science. Saleh is a highly acclaimed author, having written Photoelectron Statistics (Springer, 1978), Fundamentals of Photonics (Wiley, Third Edition 2018, with M. C. Teich), Introduction to Subsurface Imaging (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Quantum Photonics (Springer, 2025). He has published over 600 papers in journals and conference proceedings, and he holds 10 patents.
Saleh is a renowned figure in optics and photonics, having served as founding editor of Advances in Optics and Photonics (2008–2013) and editor of the Journal of the Optical Society of America A (1991–1997). He was also Vice President of the International Commission of Optics (2000–2002). He is Fellow of IEEE, Optica (formerly OSA), SPIE, APS, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has received numerous awards and commendations, including OSA Beller Medal (1999), SPIE Photomask-Technology BACUS award (2004 and 2025), Kuwait Prize (2006), OSA Distinguished Service Award (2008 ), OSA Mees Medal (2013), and SPIE Photonics Education award (2026).
]]>Abstract: Retinal degenerative diseases lead to blindness due to loss of photoreceptors, while neurons in the inner retinal layers are still preserved. We developed a system substituting the lost photoreceptors with photovoltaic arrays. Visual information captured by a camera is projected onto the subretinal implant from augmented-reality glasses using pulsed near-infrared (880nm) light. Photovoltaic pixels convert this light into electric current, stimulating the second-order retinal neurons, which then pass visual information through the retinal neural network to the brain. This approach preserves many features of natural vision, simplifies surgery by avoiding bulky electronics and wiring, allows scaling the number of electrodes to thousands and retains normal association of eye movements with visual perception.
Photovoltaic arrays implanted in patients blinded by age-related macular degeneration provides monochromatic form vision perceived simultaneously with the remaining peripheral natural vision. Clinical trials with 43 patients across 17 centers in 5 European countries demonstrated letter acuity matching their 100mm pixel size (20/420). Electronic zoom enables patients to read and write smaller fonts, improving visual acuity, on average, by 5 lines of the vision chart – up to 20/63.
Decreasing the pixel size for higher resolution is challenging due to reduced penetration depth of electric field in tissue. We developed various strategies for shaping the electric field, including current steering and 3-dimensional electrodes. With this new design, grating acuity with 40mm pixels in rats matched the pixel pitch, while with 20mm, it reached their natural resolution limit of 28mm. If successful in clinical trials, implants with 20mm pixels have the potential to increase acuity up to 20/80 without zoom, providing highly functional restoration of sight to millions of patients blinded by retinal degeneration.
About the speaker: Daniel Palanker is a Professor of Ophthalmology and by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received PhD in Applied Physics (biomedical optics) in 1994 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and postdoctoral training in Physics (ultrafast lasers) in 1996-1998 at Stanford University, CA.
Dr. Palanker studies interactions of electric field with biological cells and tissues, and develops optical and electronic technologies for diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical and prosthetic applications, primarily in ophthalmology. In the field of laser-tissue interactions, his group developed several ophthalmic laser systems, including Pattern Scanning Laser Photocoagulator (PASCAL, Iridex) and Femtosecond Laser for Cataract Surgery (Catalys, J&J). In the field of electrosurgery, he developed the scalpel-size electrosurgical tool with single-cell precision (PlasmaBlade, Medtronic). In the area of ophthalmic imaging, he is working on optoretinography – label-free imaging of neural signals based on phase-resolved OCT.
In the field of electro-neural interfaces, his lab developed the photovoltaic subretinal prosthesis for restoration of central vision in patients blinded by retinal degeneration (PRIMA), neural stimulator for enhancement of tear secretion (TrueTear, Allergan) and devices for electronic control of blood flow.
]]>About the Speaker: Daniel M. Kuchta (IEEE Fellow 2019) is a Principal Hardware System Architect at Nvidia. Previously he was a Research Staff Member in the Communications and Computation Subsystems Department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center since 1992. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986, 1988, and 1992, respectively. While at IBM Research he has worked on high-speed VCSEL characterization, multimode fiber links, parallel fiber optic links, and optics co-packaging technology research. He received IEEE J. of Lightwave Technology best paper award in 2014 and in 2018 was the first recipient of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters best paper award. He was Technical Program Chair for OFC 2018 and General Chair for OFC 2020. Dr. Kuchta is an author/coauthor of more than 145 technical papers and inventor/co-inventor of at least 40 patents.
Register: IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Speaker: Dr. Daniel Kuchta : vTools Events | vTools IEEE
]]>Tile: Two experiments on aperiodic photonic crystals
Abstract: Photonic crystals -- transparent periodic dielectric structures -- have been called "semiconductors for light" in the sense that photons propagate through them much as electrons propagate through crystalline solids. In the first part of my talk, I will show how straining a photonic crystal can make photons behave as though they were electrons immersed in a magnetic field, leading to Landau levels for light. In the second part, I will employ photonic crystals to explore the scattering properties of highly spatially correlated, so-called "stealthy-hyperuniform," disorder.
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