Prof. P.C. Ku has been awarded a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for his research project, "Nitride Semiconductor Single-Photon Emitters and Photon Entanglement."

Prof. Ku's current research focuses on Energy Efficient Optoelectronics. He is interested in how to increase the efficiency of light-emitting diodes and solar cells; how to efficiently transmit data while maintaining security; how to reduce the laser threshold; and how to reduce the power requirement for nonlinear optical devices.

He has taught standard undergraduate courses in Semiconductor Devices, and the graduate course Semiconductor Lasers and LEDs. He has also developed two new courses: Nanophotonics and Nanofabrication, and Solid-State Lighting and Solar Cells.

Ku received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003, and his Bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University. He has received an Intel Corporation Divisional Award in Phase Change Memory, and the Ross Tucker Memorial Award in Electronic Materials from U-C, Berkeley.

About the DARPA Young Faculty Award

The DARPA Young Faculty Award program is intended to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions in academia, and provide high-impact funding in order to develop their research ideas in the context of Department of Defense needs. DARPA is looking for research focusing on innovations that will enable revolutionary advances in selected areas. High-risk/high-payoff ideas are strongly encouraged.

Posted: April 24, 2010 by
Catharine June
EECS/ECE Communications Coordinator
cmsj@umich.edu or 734-936-2965