Eli Yablonovitch

Who is Eli Yablonovitch?

Eli Yablonovitch along with Sajeev John, was one of the two applied physicists who invented the field of photonic crystals in 1987. He and his team were the first to create a 3-dimension structure that exhibited a full photonic bandgap, it is called Yablonovite. In addition to pioneering photonic crystals, he was the first to recognize that a strained quantum well laser has a significantly reduced threshold current compared to its unstrained counterpart. This technique is now applied to the majority of semiconductor lasers fabricated throughout the world.

He was a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and continues to study and develop photonic crystals and photonic bandgap materials. As of July 2007, he has joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department at UC Berkeley. His other researches includes silicon photonics, quantum computing, telecommunications, and surface plasmon optics.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the OSA, and the APS.

He is also a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. In 2013 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.

He is a recipient of Adolph Lomb Medal, the Julius Springer Prize, the R. W. Wood Prize, and the W. Streifer Scientific Achievement Award.