Randy joined Lasertron Incorporated, Bedford MA in April 1997 as a Senior Engineer. Lasertron's main goal has been to make semiconductor lasers and receivers for optical communications. Randy has been part of a team developing the Lasertron 2.1 High Power 980nm chip. This is the 2nd generation chip for our premier product.
Randy was project leader for the fiber Bragg grating stabilized (BGS) 980nm pump laser. This product was developed to achieve high power and wavelength stability over a wide range of powers (see Laser Focus World, Nov. 1999). It completed qualification during 1999 and has gained wide acceptance within the telecom industry. It has generated beyond $10M in revenue since going into full production. In January 2000, Lasertron (including its parent Oak Industries) was taken over by Corning Incorporated. Our location is now called Corning Lasertron. Corning has huge demand for pump lasers since it is the largest single supplier of erbium fiber amplifiers (EDFAs).
Currently, Randy is project leader for a next generation high-speed source laser. Randy's main interests include: semiconductor lasers (both high power and high speed), quantum noise, dispersion compensation, filtering, polarization, electronic components, and methods of integrating these elements.
During his recent postdoc at UCSB, he was involved in projects for 1) an integrated wavelength monitor for sampled-grating, distributed-Bragg-reflector (SGDBR) lasers -- These are broadly wavelength tunable semiconductor lasers that can lase at any one of about thirty distinct wavelengths in the optical spectrum and 2) a photon number amplifier -- This is a device that amplifies light and gives quantum noise performance which is superior to standard optical amplifiers. The advantage is due to the fact that unlike standard travelling wave amplifiers, which always give a statistical distribution in the number of output photons, for a known number of input photons, the photon number amplifier will give exactly N times as many output photons (no more, no less). Thus, it is a deterministic amplifier and adds less noise. Plus, it can serve as a wavelength converter.
Yeah, big deal! Who cares!
You do -- because the rate at which you read Randy's homepage is directly dependent on devices and systems of the finite-capacity network through which you gather all your web info.
Randy grew up in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, USA. Now, his friends there think Randy has abandoned his republican past and been lured away by liberal California thinking. The fact that he drives a Toyota now didn't help much either. But the change is not that dramatic and he'll convert them yet.
Randy has one brother and one sister. Here is a picture of his family , showing (from left to right) his oldest nephew (Shawn), mother, father, Randy, brother (Brian), sister (Janine), and youngest nephew (Eric).
Randy graduated from Riverside High School and later attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received his B.S. in electrical engineering. Here's evidence that Randy made a lot of strange noises while he was at Michigan. He then went to Caltech in Pasadena, CA where he got his M.S.E.E. and studied under Prof. Amnon Yariv . There he completed a Ph.D. on "Ultrashort and Ultrahigh-Repetition-Rate Pulse Generation through Passive Modelocking" involving experiments for generating sub-picosecond pulses of light, demonstrating lasers which turn off and on ~100 billion times per second, and determining the ultimate theoretical limitations of such devices.
On July 4, 1998, Randy married Christina Alvarez Salvatore. This was probably Randy's best decision yet. His sweet wife Christina is currently a graduate student in organic chemistry at Boston College.
Reg Lee, a grad student studying Vertical Cavity Semiconductor Lasers (VCSELs) and helpful in setting up my first home page.
Dan Provenzano, a grad student studying low-noise semiconductor lasers.
Matt McAdams, a grad student studying high-speed modulation of semiconductor lasers.
A picture of me with John Kitching in Las Vegas, taken by Xu. Dr. John is now working at NIST in Boulder, CO.
After being a postdoc at UCSB for 13 months, Randy had concluded that Santa Barbara is geographically the ideal spot in the U.S. Here's a picture of Santa Barbara. With the calm ocean, the peaceful mountains, the awesome weather, and the beautiful city, one finds it hard to wish for more. No one knows why they bother reporting the weather everyday -- sunshine and moderate temperatures are the rule. With an enormous number of trails in the area, mountain biking is among the best anywhere. And except for a couple of cases of poison oak I'd picked up and the mishap resulting in a cast on my wrist for 3 weeks, it was extremely enjoyable. Click here to link to the bike club with which I was riding.
Last updated July 5, 2000
