The Ultrafast and Nanoscale Optics Group is an integral part of the Applied Optics-Photonics and Nanoscale Devices and Systems Programs of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego. Our group primarily focuses on basic and applied research in nanophotonics, metamaterials, near field optical science and ultrafast optics with special emphasis on nonlinear and resonant phenomena. This research is being used in a number of critical applications including ultra-high speed communication, chip-scale integrated photonic systems, biochemical and biomedical sensing, optical storage, 3D quantitative imaging, and display. Our current research cover areas such as nanostructured composite materials and devices made of dielectrics, semiconductors, and metals with programmability and multifunctionality in polarization and wavelength, ultrafast waveform synthesis, processing and detection using femto-second laser pulses, high throughput biomedical sensors, quantum cryptography for secret key generation, confocal microscopy and 3D retinal imaging and near field optical imaging tools. Further details are available on the research and publications pages.

This research work is carried out using departmental facilities and the optics labs equipped with a variety of modern optical, optoelectronic and measurement equipment, including a femto-second and other tunable laser sources. The research group is directed by Prof. Yeshaiahu Fainman and consists Ph.D. graduate student members, undergraduate internship students, staff and post-doctoral researchers. We have a weekly group seminar meeting as well as individual research project meetings. The group does collaborative work with other faculty members and researchers in the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Medical School at UCSD. Furthermore, we have outside academic and industrial collaborations on several projects. For more information, please feel free to contact any of our group members.