Prize Recipient

Peter J. Delfyett, Jr.
University of Central Florida

"For pioneering contributions to the development of ultrafast mode-locked semiconductor diode lasers, including the scientific understanding of the underlying physical processes, and their application in ultra-wide bandwidth optical communications and signal processing."

Peter Delfyett received the B.E.(E.E.) degree from The City College of New York (1981), the M.S. degree in EE from The University of Rochester (1983), the M. Phil and Ph.D. degrees from The Graduate School & University Center of the City University of New York (1988). After obtaining the Ph.D. degree, he joined Bell Communication Research as a Member of the Technical Staff, where he concentrated his efforts towards generating ultrafast high power optical pulses from semiconductor diode lasers, for applications in ultra-wide bandwidth optical signal processing and communications. In 1993, he moved to University of Central Florida, where he is Pegasus Professor and Trustee Chair Professor of Optics, EE & Physics in CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, and is currently serving as the Director of the Townes Laser Institute. In 2003, Dr. Delfyett founded “Raydiance, Inc.” a spin-off company developing high power, ultrafast laser systems, based on his research, for applications in medicine, consumer electronics, defense, material processing, biotechnology, automotive and other key technological markets. He is a Fellow of the APS, IEEE, NAI, NSBP, OSA, and SPIE. He is also the recipient of the NSF PECASE Award, the APS Edward Bouchet Award, the 2014 Medalist from the Florida Academy of Science, the 2018 Townsend Harris Award, and the 2020 IEEE Photonics Society’s William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award. He has over 800 scientific publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings and 43 US patents.

Toni Taylor (Chair), Steve Cundiff, Jennifer Ogilvie, Shaul Mukamel, Min Xiao