Title: Photonics for Microwave Systems and Ultra-Wideband Signal Processing
Speaker: Willie Ng, Ph.D., Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California
Abstract: This seminar will describe the development and application of photonics technology in microwave antenna systems and ultra-wideband signal processing. It will cover our recent work on the characterization of high frequency modulators and mode-locked lasers, photonic-assisted analog-to-digital conversion, as well as RF-photonic filtering. The seminar will also describe how the broadband capabilities of photonics and wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) technologies can be utilized for high dynamic range antenna remoting and true-time-delay beamforming that cover multiple microwave bands.
Bio: Dr. Willie W. Ng is currently a Research Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Prior to joining USC in 2013, he spent close to three decades at HRL Laboratories, Malibu, CA, where he was a Principal Research Scientist, Program Manager and Department Manager. Under DARPA and U.S. Air Force sponsorships, he led HRL teams that demonstrated a variety of photonic devices/subsystems designed for microwave antenna systems and ultra-wideband signal processing, including RF-photonic filtering and photonics-assisted analog- to-digital conversion. He has given many invited talks in IEEE/OSA Conferences and DARPA Symposiums, and is the author and co-author of over 100 journal articles and conference papers.
He holds 28 U.S. patents in the area of photonics technology. Cited for pioneering contributions to microwave photonics, he was one of six individuals selected to receive the Excellence in Technology Award in 2005 from the Raytheon Company. Prior to HRL, he was a Member of the Technical Staff at the Rockwell Science Center, Thousand Oaks, Calif., where he developed GaInAsP/InP buried heterostructure lasers and power converters. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio), and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, Calif.) under the guidance of Prof. A. Yariv. His thesis work was on the demonstration of GaAlAs/GaAs Distributed Bragg Reflector lasers and Bragg waveguides. He is a fellow of the IEEE, and served on the 2013-2015 CLEO (Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics) Technical Committee.