Donald Scifres

Donald Ray Scifres (born September 10, 1946 in Lafayette , Indiana ) is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur.

Scifres studied at Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in 1968 and at the University of Illinois with a master's degree in 1970 and a doctorate in 1972. He then worked at the Xerox Parc research center in Palo Alto until 1983 , where he and colleagues worked on distributed feedback semiconductors -Injection laser developed. This became the preferred light source for long-range communication via optical fibers .

In 1983 he and others founded Spectra Diode Laboratories (SDL) in San José , a joint venture between Xerox and Spectra Physics , which became the leading manufacturer of fiber optic components and modules (high-power semiconductor lasers, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA), high-speed electronics for optical Communication , planar lightwave circuits, optical modulators, measuring devices). In 2001 the company merged with JDS Uniphase and Scifres was co-director and chief strategy officer until his retirement in 2003. He was then a director of the venture capital firm SDL Ventures .

Scifres holds over 130 patents and over 300 articles and book chapters. In 1997 he received the George E. Pake Prize of the American Physical Society and in 2018 the Arthur L. Schawlow Award . He was also awarded the Rank Prize , the Jack A. Morton Award of the IEEE , the Robert N. Noyce Medal , the LEOS Award and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal . He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an IEEE Fellow and Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), whose Edwin H. Land Medal he received. He was President of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), President of the Lasers and Electro-Optics Manufacturers Association, and Director of OSA.

Web links

• Biography at the IEEE

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004