The Boston University Photonics Center annual report 2016-2017

This repository item contains an annual report that summarizes activities of the Boston University Photonics Center in the 2016-2017 academic year. The report provides quantitative and descriptive information regarding photonics programs in education, interdisciplinary research, business innovation, and technology development. The Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC) is an interdisciplinary hub for education, research, scholarship, innovation, and technology development associated with practical uses of light.This has undoubtedly been the Photonics Center’s best year since I became Director 10 years ago. In the following pages, you will see highlights of the Center’s activities in the past year, including more than 100 notable scholarly publications in the leading journals in our field, and the attraction of more than 22 million dollars in new research grants/contracts. Last year I had the honor to lead an international search for the first recipient of the Moustakas Endowed Professorship in Optics and Photonics, in collaboration with ECE Department Chair Clem Karl. This professorship honors the Center’s most impactful scholar and one of the Center’s founding visionaries, Professor Theodore Moustakas. We are delighted to haveawarded this professorship to Professor Ji-Xin Cheng, who joined our faculty this year.The past year also marked the launch of Boston University’s Neurophotonics Center, which will be allied closely with the Photonics Center. Leading that Center will be a distinguished new faculty member, Professor David Boas. David and I are together leading a new Neurophotonics NSF Research Traineeship Program that will provide $3M to promote graduate traineeships in this emerging new field. We had a busy summer hosting NSF Sites for Research Experiences for Undergraduates, Research Experiences for Teachers, and the BU Student Satellite Program. As a community, we emphasized the theme of “Optics of Cancer Imaging” at our annual symposium, hosted by Darren Roblyer. We entered a five-year second phase of NSF funding in our Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Biophotonic Sensors and Systems, which has become the centerpiece of our translational biophotonics program. That I/UCRC continues to focus on advancing the health care and medical device industries

Principles of Neuromorphic Photonics

In an age overrun with information, the ability to process reams of data has become crucial. The demand for data will continue to grow as smart gadgets multiply and become increasingly integrated into our daily lives. Next-generation industries in artificial intelligence services and high-performance computing are so far supported by microelectronic platforms. These data-intensive enterprises rely on continual improvements in hardware. Their prospects are running up against a stark reality: conventional one-size-fits-all solutions offered by digital electronics can no longer satisfy this need, as Moore's law (exponential hardware scaling), interconnection density, and the von Neumann architecture reach their limits. With its superior speed and reconfigurability, analog photonics can provide some relief to these problems; however, complex applications of analog photonics have remained largely unexplored due to the absence of a robust photonic integration industry. Recently, the landscape for commercially-manufacturable photonic chips has been changing rapidly and now promises to achieve economies of scale previously enjoyed solely by microelectronics. The scientific community has set out to build bridges between the domains of photonic device physics and neural networks, giving rise to the field of \emph{neuromorphic photonics}. This article reviews the recent progress in integrated neuromorphic photonics. We provide an overview of neuromorphic computing, discuss the associated technology (microelectronic and photonic) platforms and compare their metric performance. We discuss photonic neural network approaches and challenges for integrated neuromorphic photonic processors while providing an in-depth description of photonic neurons and a candidate interconnection architecture. We conclude with a future outlook of neuro-inspired photonic processing.Comment: 28 pages, 19 figure

The Boston University Photonics Center annual report 2014-2015

This repository item contains an annual report that summarizes activities of the Boston University Photonics Center in the 2014-2015 academic year. The report provides quantitative and descriptive information regarding photonics programs in education, interdisciplinary research, business innovation, and technology development. The Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC) is an interdisciplinary hub for education, research, scholarship, innovation, and technology development associated with practical uses of light.This has been a good year for the Photonics Center. In the following pages, you will see that the center’s faculty received prodigious honors and awards, generated more than 100 notable scholarly publications in the leading journals in our field, and attracted $18.6M in new research grants/contracts. Faculty and staff also expanded their efforts in education and training, and were awarded two new National Science Foundation– sponsored sites for Research Experiences for Undergraduates and for Teachers. As a community, we hosted a compelling series of distinguished invited speakers, and emphasized the theme of Advanced Materials by Design for the 21st Century at our annual symposium. We continued to support the National Photonics Initiative, and are a part of a New York–based consortium that won the competition for a new photonics- themed node in the National Network of Manufacturing Institutes. Highlights of our research achievements for the year include an ambitious new DoD-sponsored grant for Multi-Scale Multi-Disciplinary Modeling of Electronic Materials led by Professor Enrico Bellotti, continued support of our NIH-sponsored Center for Innovation in Point of Care Technologies for the Future of Cancer Care led by Professor Catherine Klapperich, a new award for Personalized Chemotherapy Through Rapid Monitoring with Wearable Optics led by Assistant Professor Darren Roblyer, and a new award from DARPA to conduct research on Calligraphy to Build Tunable Optical Metamaterials led by Professor Dave Bishop. We were also honored to receive an award from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to develop a biophotonics laboratory in our Business Innovation Center

The Boston University Photonics Center annual report 2014-2015

This repository item contains an annual report that summarizes activities of the Boston University Photonics Center in the 2014-2015 academic year. The report provides quantitative and descriptive information regarding photonics programs in education, interdisciplinary research, business innovation, and technology development. The Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC) is an interdisciplinary hub for education, research, scholarship, innovation, and technology development associated with practical uses of light.This has been a good year for the Photonics Center. In the following pages, you will see that the center’s faculty received prodigious honors and awards, generated more than 100 notable scholarly publications in the leading journals in our field, and attracted $18.6M in new research grants/contracts. Faculty and staff also expanded their efforts in education and training, and were awarded two new National Science Foundation– sponsored sites for Research Experiences for Undergraduates and for Teachers. As a community, we hosted a compelling series of distinguished invited speakers, and emphasized the theme of Advanced Materials by Design for the 21st Century at our annual symposium. We continued to support the National Photonics Initiative, and are a part of a New York–based consortium that won the competition for a new photonics- themed node in the National Network of Manufacturing Institutes. Highlights of our research achievements for the year include an ambitious new DoD-sponsored grant for Multi-Scale Multi-Disciplinary Modeling of Electronic Materials led by Professor Enrico Bellotti, continued support of our NIH-sponsored Center for Innovation in Point of Care Technologies for the Future of Cancer Care led by Professor Catherine Klapperich, a new award for Personalized Chemotherapy Through Rapid Monitoring with Wearable Optics led by Assistant Professor Darren Roblyer, and a new award from DARPA to conduct research on Calligraphy to Build Tunable Optical Metamaterials led by Professor Dave Bishop. We were also honored to receive an award from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to develop a biophotonics laboratory in our Business Innovation Center

A radial basis function neural network based approach for the electrical characteristics estimation of a photovoltaic module

The design process of photovoltaic (PV) modules can be greatly enhanced by using advanced and accurate models in order to predict accurately their electrical output behavior. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the application of an advanced neural network based model of a module to improve the accuracy of the predicted output I--V and P--V curves and to keep in account the change of all the parameters at different operating conditions. Radial basis function neural networks (RBFNN) are here utilized to predict the output characteristic of a commercial PV module, by reading only the data of solar irradiation and temperature. A lot of available experimental data were used for the training of the RBFNN, and a backpropagation algorithm was employed. Simulation and experimental validation is reported