Current group members
Top left to right: Harry Hart, Jonathan Daniel, Albert DiBenedetto.
Bottom left to righ: Xavier Walle, Cameron Bullock, Jay Sharping
Harry Hart
Jonathan Daniel
Albert DiBenedetto
Albert is the bearded fellow on the right with Xavier Walle (left).
Xavier Walle
Cameron Bullock
Jay E. Sharping
Jay (shown modeling the latest laser safety eyewear with his son Thomas) is currently an Associate Professor at the University of California – Merced. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2003 under the direction of Professor Prem Kumar and served as a postdoctoral scientist at Cornell University in Professor Alexander Gaeta’s Quantum and Nonlinear Optics research group.
Former group members
Jeremy Sanborn - After graduating with is BS from UC Merced. Jeremy attended UC Davis and received his PhD.
Robin Roces
Michael Lee
Gabe Cano
Bryce Kornreich
Erick Watanabe
Yashwant Verma
Christiane Pailo
Tessa Pinon - After receiving her PhD from UC Merced, Tessa took a position at the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Yanhua Zhai
Nancy Duque
Raymond Cheung
Leily Kiani - After receiving her PhD from UC Merced, Leily went to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Leily joined the Applied Photonics Research Group as an AGEP scholar in the summer of 2008. She worked on a variety of projects convergent on the development of fiber optical parametric oscillators based on microstructure optical fibers. She enjoys spending time with friends and family, visiting the California beaches and mountains and playing soccer. Leily was a member of the pioneer class at UC Merced. She chose to attend UC Merced to be involved in the unique opportunities that come with participation in a developing program.
Alessandro Castelli - After receiving his PhD from UC Merced, Al took a position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Al joined the Applied Photonics Research Group at UC Merced in 2011. As an undergraduate student in the lab, he studied coupling efficiency parameters for dual beam, fiber integrated optical trapping. As a graduate student, he has changed his focus and began to study free standing Niobium membranes in a microwave cavity for use in parametric amplification.
Alison Huff - After receiving her PhD from UC Merced, Alison took a tenure-track position teaching Physics at Merced College.
Alison joined the Applied Photonics Research Group in Fall 2012. She worked on trapping particles in a dual beam fiber optical trap with varying fiber separation. She is also actively involved in a collaboration to study Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) with this optical trapping/stretching platform. She attended the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio for her undergraduate degree and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for her masters degree. Alison’s undergraduate research involved studying a charged pendulum in a varying electric and magnetic field and examining the characteristics of 17R4 in water using refractive index measurements and dynamic light scattering. Her masters research involved constructing a dual high pressure generator for examining biological systems at high pressures. In her free time Alison likes to play games and read detective novels. She chose the Physics group at UC Merced because of the environment, faculty, research opportunities and proximity to home.
Rodolfo Lopez
Jacob Pate - After receiving his PhD from UC Merced, Jake took a postdoc position at CU Boulder.
Jake joined the Applied Photonics Group in Spring 2015. His work focused on implementing macroscopic optomechanical systems using superconducting radio frequency cavities for the purpose of exploring the limits to the classical-quantum boundary. Jake attended California State University, San Bernardino for his undergraduate degree. He has spent five summers of internships at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California working on metrology and interferometry systems. Jake discovers motivation in setting goals and pursuing passions. In his free time Jake enjoys spending time with his wife and son, Marissa and Mason, in doing fun activities such as camping, swimming, and visiting Yosemite.
Deepak Sapkota - After receiving his PhD from UC Merced Deepak became a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Deepak investigated the output coupling scheme for a non-polarization maintaining microstructure fiber optical parametric oscillator (FOPO) considering the effect of polarization on it. We observe both sidebands, signal and idler, coupled out using optical analyzer. The polarization based output coupling scheme leads to an increase of output power by 20%-30%. This increases tunability of the system ranging from 965nm to 1165nm with centered at 1064nm, which is not possible to obtain from any laser.
Nabin Raut - After receiving his PhD from UC Merced, Nabin took a postdoctoral position at Jefferson Laboratory.
Jeffrey Miller - After receiving his PhD from UC Merced Jeffery took a postdoctoral position at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
My project involves a combination of the fields of fiber optics, microwave electronics and superconducting radio frequency cavities. I am working towards building an optoelectronic microwave oscillator and incorporating a SRF cavity into the design for use as a band pass filter. In the future, I hope to extend the OEO and implement the functionality of an optical clock.
Thompson Lu
Thompson has been in the Applied Photonics Group for three active years. As an undergrad, his research was to study and model the feasibility using a near infrared laser source for clearing biofilms off surfaces. As a graduate student, his research is to characterize a microstructure fiber based optical parametric oscillator and its applications to coherent Raman Scattering spectroscopy and microscopy. Thompson obtained his B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Merced. He is currently pursuing a M.S. in Bioengineering and Small-scale Technologies at the same institution. During his free time Thompson plays the alto sax in the pep band and surfs the internet.
Chenji Gu
Chenji Gu joined the Applied Photonics Group in Aug. 2007 to pursue his Ph.D. degree. His research works focus on fundamentals and applications of ultrafast four-wave-mixing process for tunable light sources, i.e., fiber optical parametric oscillators (FOPOs) in the femosecond and picosecond regimes. He got Ph.D. in Physics at UC Merced in Dec. 2012. Before coming to US, he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 2004 and 2007 respectively. His current research interests include experimental and theoretical studies on nonlinear fiber optics and ultrafast optics. During his spare time he enjoys visiting a variety of places in California.
Sharping group in 2016