IEEE Awards Booklet - 2019 - 15

2019 Ieee medAls

IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal
Sponsored by the Federation of Electric Power Companies, Japan

Yasuhiko Arakawa,
Pallab Bhattacharya, and Dieter Bimberg
For contributions to the development and commercialization
of quantum dot lasers

he pioneering and continued eﬀorts of Yasuhiko Arakawa,
Pallab Bhattacharya, and Dieter Bimberg enabled the scientific and technological marvel known as the quantum
dot (QD) laser, which is replacing semiconductor lasers in a growing range of areas including optical communications, medical and
industrial applications, and silicon photonics. Their contributions
provide the basis for the development of advanced systems for
data- and telecommunications and quantum cryptography. The
successful operation of the QD laser depended on the realization
of nanostructured atom-like quantum dots in the gain region, but
the technology for this did not exist. Arakawa, Bhattacharya, and
Bimberg's groups solved this problem by creating a laser that has
vastly superior characteristics compared to traditional semiconductor lasers, including those on silicon substrates by Arakawa
and Bhattacharya. In 1982, Arakawa proposed the concept of the
QD laser and theoretically showed temperature insensitivity of
threshold current in the device. He experimentally demonstrated
the reduced temperature dependence of threshold current using
high magnetic fields and also forecasted theoretically enhanced
modulation dynamics and reduced spectral linewidth. He then
worked on developing high-performance QD lasers, demonstrating temperature-insensitive QD lasers, and contributed to their
first commercialization. Bhattacharya turned his attention to
QD lasers in the 1980s when his group accidently observed the
formation of self-organized QDs in the strained channel region
of high-speed modulation doped transistors. His group was one
of the first to report a room-temperature QD laser, and he also

demonstrated the laser's temperature-invariant operation, nearzero chirp, and high-speed modulation, as well as the first IIInitride-based QD lasers and LEDs with emission in the entire
R-B-G wavelength range for displays. Bimberg demonstrated the
first low- and room-temperature injection lasers based on selforganized quantum dots. He pioneered the general eﬀective mass,
8-band Kronig-Penney, and many particle theories of quantum
dots presenting the basis to understand the electronic, optical, and
transport properties of QDs and QD devices. His fundamental
discovery of the relevance of strain for self-organized growth established novel growth technologies for devices with properties
superior to those of quantum-well structures.
An IEEE Life Fellow and foreign member of the U.S.
National Academy of Engineering, Arakawa is a Specially Appointed Professor and Professor Emeritus with The University of
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
An IEEE Life Fellow, a member of the U.S. National Academy
of Engineering, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Bhattacharya is the Charles M.Vest Distinguished University
Professor and James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering with the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
An IEEE Life Fellow, member of the German and Russian
Academies of Sciences, and foreign member of the U.S. National
Academies of Engineering and Inventors, Bimberg is executive
director of the "Bimberg Chinese-German Center for Green
Photonics" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at CIOMP,
Changchun, China.

Scope: For outstanding contributions to material and device science and technology, including practical application.

15 | 2019 IEEE awards bookLET

IEEE Awards Booklet - 2019

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