معرفی
Thomas G. Brown is a Professor and the Director of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, a position he has held since 1987. He is the Mercer Brugler Distinguished Teaching Professor, a Fellow of Optica and SPIE, and serves as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Modern Optics while chairing the multidimensional microscopy conference at Photonics West.
Education:
- Ph.D. from the Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, under Prof. Dennis Hall, focusing on silicon-based optoelectronics/photonics with emphasis on extrinsic light emission in silicon.
Professor Brown's research centers on polarization phenomena, microscopy, and photonic integrated circuits. He pioneered the full Poincaré beam concept and coined 'Cylindrical Vector Beam'—a top-10 cited Optics Express paper—with applications in semiconductor lithography, inspection, and single-molecule imaging. Current work includes stress-engineered optical elements, nanostructure polarization properties, and PIC packaging/testing.
Scientific Awards:
- Fellow of Optica
- Fellow of SPIE
- Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2017)
- Honorary Member, Rochester Local Chapter of Optica
- Top 10 Most Cited Paper in Optics Express (2000)
He established the undergraduate honors research program and served as undergraduate chair for a decade. Industry collaborations span Qualcomm, IBM, Corning, and AIM Photonics—where he co-leads Test, Assembly and Packaging—translating research into semiconductor manufacturing and biomedical applications.
Founder of the Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering, his lab advances polarization optics and photonic integrated circuits for next-generation optical systems in lithography, metrology, and molecular imaging.
