Michael Hochberg

Michael Hochberg (born 1980) is an American physicist. He is an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington. Hochberg was born in Ithaca, NY, and attended high school at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts. He obtained a BS in Physics in 2002 and a PhD in Applied Physics in 2006, both from the California Institute of Technology. Hochberg was a student of Professor Axel Scherer.

While an undergraduate, Hochberg founded a software company, Simulant,^[1] which sold a distributed implementation of the Finite-Difference Time Domain algorithm. Simulant was later acquired by Luxtera, a photonics component firm co-founded^[2] by Hochberg.

Hochberg's research interests include silicon photonics, nonlinear optics, and ultra-low drive voltage optical modulators.^[3] He was on the team that first demonstrated that slot waveguides could be combined with electrooptic polymers to obtain exceptionally low drive voltage modulators. Recently, he has demonstrated that this technique can be used to create modulators with drive voltages of 0.25 V,^[4] over an order-of-magnitude lower value than what is typically achieved with Lithium niobate based optical modulators.^[5] More recently, Dr. Hochberg has been involved in a demonstration that the force of an optical mode in a waveguide could be used to directly actuate a nanomechanical system.^[6] Hochberg was awarded the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research Young Investigator award in 2007,^[7] and was awarded a PECASE award in 2009.^[8] Hochberg's work has been featured in Nature Materials, Nature, and other journals.

Selected works

• Nonlinear optics:

M. Hochberg, T. Baehr-Jones, G. Wang, M. Shearn, K. Harvard, J. Liu, B. Chen, Z. Shi, R. Lawson, P. Sullivan, A. Jen, L. Dalton, A. Scherer (2006). "Terahertz all-optical modulation in silicon-polymer hybrid system". Nature Materials 9: 703–709. arXiv:physics/0606244. Bibcode 2006NatMa...5..703H. doi:10.1038/nmat1719. 

T. Baehr-Jones, M. Hochberg (2008). "Polymer Silicon Hybrid Systems: a Platform for Practical Nonlinear Optics". Journal of Physical Chemistry C 112: 21. 

• Slot waveguide based optical modulators

T. Baehr-Jones, M. Hochberg, G. Wang, R. Lawson, Y. Liao, P. Sullivan, L. Dalton, A. Jen, A. Scherer (2005). "Optical modulation and detection in slotted silicon waveguides". Optics Express 13 (14): 5216–5226. Bibcode 2005OExpr..13.5216B. doi:10.1364/OPEX.13.005216. PMID 19498512. 

M. Hochberg, T. Baehr-Jones, G. Wang, J. Huang, P. Sullivan, L. Dalton, A. Scherer (2007). "Towards a millivolt optical modulator with nano-slot waveguides". Optics Express 15 (13): 8401–8410. Bibcode 2007OExpr..15.8401H. doi:10.1364/OE.15.008401. PMID 19547171. 

T. Baehr-Jones, B. Penkov, J. Huang, P. Sullivan, J. Davies, J. Takayesu, J. Luo, T.-D. Kim, L. Dalton, A. Jen, M. Hochberg, A. Scherer (2008). "Nonlinear polymer-clad silicon slot waveguide modulator with a half wave voltage of 0.25 V". Applied Physics Letters 92: 163303. Bibcode 2008ApPhL..92p3303B. doi:10.1063/1.2909656. 

• Optical actuation of nanomechanical systems

Mo Li, W. H. P. Pernice, C. Xiong, T. Baehr-Jones, M. Hochberg, H. X. Tang (2008). "Harnessing optical forces in integrated photonic circuits". Nature 456 (7221): 480–485. Bibcode 2008Natur.456..480L. doi:10.1038/nature07545. PMID 19037311. 

External links

• Hochberg's group site at the University of Washington.
• Press coverage of new lab in the Puget Sound Business Journal.
• Press coverage of optical actuation result in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

References

1. ^ ITU ventures invests in Simulant start-up
2. ^ UW nanophotonic lab aims at chips
3. ^ UW Nanophotonics Lab
4. ^ Baehr-Jones, Tom; Boyan Penkov, Jingqing Huang, et al. (2008-04-21). "Nonlinear polymer-clad silicon slot waveguide modulator with a half wave voltage of 0.25 V". Applied Physics Letters (American Institute of Physics) 92 (163303): 163303. Bibcode 2008ApPhL..92p3303B. doi:10.1063/1.2909656. http://scitation.aip.org/getpdf/servlet/GetPDFServlet?filetype=pdf&id=APPLAB000092000016163303000001&idtype=cvips&prog=search. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
5. ^ 40+ Gb/s Modulators at Eospace.com
6. ^ Harnessing optical forces in integrated photonic circuits
7. ^ [1]
8. ^ [2]

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Name	Hochberg, Michael
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Date of birth	1980
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