February 10: Randy C. Giles
"Micromachines of the Gigabit Era"
Abstract
Incredibly tiny machines are ready to join the Internet Revolution.
Pinhead-sized moving mirrors, microscopic trampolines, and slivers of
silicon can make optical communication networks faster, smarter, and
cheaper. Micromachines may be the engines to an on-line world rivaling
Earth, virtual reality at home, and global video games. Very cool.
Biography
Randy Giles is technical manager of the photonic subsystem research
group at Lucent Technologies. His current responsibilities include the
design and demonstration of Lucent's newest MEMS-based optical
crossconnect. In his 14 year career at Bell Laboratories, Dr. Giles
pioneered the modeling and use of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for
lightwave systems, demonstrated the first optical add/drop multiplexers
by means of Bragg-grating technology and most recently has been
developing optical network applications of micromachines. Dr. Giles is
a graduate of the universities of Alberta and Victoria in the study of
intense laser-plasma interactions. Before Bell Laboratories, Dr. Giles
worked at Nortel's research labs on their first gigabit optical
transmission systems.