IEEE Awards Booklet - 2021 - 14

2021 IEEE MEDALS

IEEE/RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal

IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal

Sponsored by ARM, Ltd.

Sponsored by the IEEE
Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal Fund

Evelyn L. Hu

James J. Coleman

For leadership in nanoscale science
and engineering, and for seminal contributions at the intersection of semiconductor electronics and photonics

For contributions to the development of
strained-layer semiconductor lasers

A pioneer in the development of semiconductor nanostructures,
Evelyn L. Hu has been pivotal in pushing microelectronics to
smaller size regimes for production of more-efficient, higherperformance photonic devices. The techniques she has helped
to develop have found broad use in patterning and sculpting
semiconductor structures at the nanoscale, with an emphasis on
low-damage techniques that preserve the photonic and electronic
performance of the underlying materials. Bridging diverse fields
of applied physics, materials science, soft condensed matter, and
electrical engineering throughout her career, Hu brought interdisciplinary teams together to match nanofabrication techniques
with the integration of materials and devices that demonstrate
exceptional electronic and photonic behavior for efficient control
and coherent output of devices. Most well known for her seminal
work in III-V and III-nitride semiconductors that efficiently interact with light, her early work at Bell Labs included the application of e-beam lithography for the nanofabrication of superconducting tunnel junctions and the dry etching of narrow silicon
MOSFETs, laying the groundwork for electronic devices that
are fabricated so small that quantum mechanical behavior comes
into play. She played a central role in the University of California
at Santa Barbara's world-renowned Center for Quantized Electron Structures (QUEST) in developing appropriate processing
techniques for patterning a wide variety of III-V semiconductor
materials required to realize a full range of quantum electronic
and optoelectronic devices. She has had great impact on today's
technologies, in particular III-nitride light emitting diodes, and
her recent research at Harvard University is being applied to the
emerging field of quantum technologies. Her breakthroughs in
tightly confining light at the nanoscale, and efficiently coupling it
to solid-state quantum photonic platforms, have led to discoveries
in generating quantum light or storing quantum information in
atomic-like spin states.
An IEEE Life Fellow and fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Hu is the Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied
Physics and Electrical Engineering at the John A. Paulson School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA, USA.

Ushering in a new era of laser design, James J. Coleman's work on
strained-layer semiconductor lasers has enabled high-power lasers
for all-optical telecommunications systems and technologies we
take for granted today such as DVD players and laser pointers.
Coleman recognized early the importance of strained layer lasers
as efficient sources in the 980-nm pump band of erbium-doped
fibers and was the first to systematically study and demonstrate
reliable strained-layer semiconductor layers operating in the 9001100-nm range using indium gallium arsenide quantum wells. His
pioneering studies were the first to relate strain, performance, and
reliability in this system and confirmed earlier predictions that
threshold current densities are lower for these devices compared
to unstrained lasers.These lasers are now widely used in fiber-optic
telecommunications networks as pump sources for optical amplifiers. The simple, all-optical erbium-doped optical-fiber amplifier
has replaced more complex, more costly, and less reliable opticalelectrical-optical regeneration circuitry. Prior to Coleman's work
there had been theoretical predictions of the potential advantages
of strained quantum-well lasers in the 980-nm band; however, his
experimental work established their commercial viability, which
was crucial for the acceptance of this technology. Today, virtually all semiconductor lasers routinely use strain-reduced valence
band (hole) effective mass as a design variable. In his early career,
Coleman contributed to the development of long wavelength
telecommunication diode lasers grown by liquid phase epitaxy,
and he was involved in early demonstrations of the effectiveness
of metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) to make
quantum well lasers, solar cells, and photodetectors with better
performance characteristics. His more recent work includes highperformance lasers, integrated lasers, and other photonic devices
produced through selective-area epitaxy and novel growth processes for quantum-dot lasers and other three-dimensional nanostructures. Other commercial products also utilize his laser designs
for applications in displays and information storage and retrieval.
An IEEE Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academy of
Engineering, Coleman is the Presidential Distinguished Professor
of Photonics at the University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington,
TX, USA.

Scope: For groundbreaking contributions that have had an exceptional impact on the development of electronics and electrical
engineering or related fields.

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

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IEEE Awards Booklet - 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2021
