T. Kenneth Gustafson

T. Kenneth Gustafson was born in Rossland, British Columbia. He attended the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada where his received both his BASc and MASc degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and obtained his Ph.D. in June 1968. His thesis focused on nonlinear optical light pulse propagation and included initial work on self-steepening of light pulses, self-phase modulation, and thermodynamic implications of such interactions. His thesis adviser was the late Herman A. Haus. While at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was a consultant with Lincoln Laboratory and collaborated with P. Kelley, C.H. Townes, R.Y. Chiao.

Following graduation, Professor Gustafson joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley where he continued work on nonlinear optical pulse propagation and, in particular, suggested the external self-phase modulation for the compression of optical pulses. Other work included coherent pulse probe measurements of the rotational Raman structure of molecular gases and the utilization of tunneling structures for coherent optical detection.

In 1972 Dr. Gustafson spent a year to working at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He collaborated on initial picosecond pulse propagation in optical fibers, microwave difference frequency generation using point contact tunneling junctions, dye vapor investigations for tunable radiation, and optical frequency detection in microfabricated tunneling junctions. Upon returning to the University of California, Berkeley he and his students initiated work on the utilization of double Feynman graphical interpretations of nonlinear optical phenomena, which provided some of the initial indications of collision-induced resonances.

In 1976, Professor Gustafson spent his yearlong sabbatical conducting research. He spent 6 months at NASA Ames Research Center carrying out investigations relating to strong nonlinearities, laser dissociation, and surface harmonic generation, and 6 months at ONERA in France where he continued to work on nonlinear CARS spectroscopy in collaboration with J.P. Taran. From 1978-85, he, his students, and colleagues continued to explore detection mechanisms in semiconductor devices as well as exploratory work on four wave mixing for the mode-locking of semiconductor lasers.

During 1985-87, Dr. Gustafson served as program director of the Lightwave Technology program for the National Science Foundation in Washington DC, and as a deputy division director of the Emerging Engineering Technologies division. He was a member of the User Executive Committee (1988-91) for the Advanced Light Source during its construction at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has participated in international forums, in particular, the International Symposium on Advanced Telecommunications held in Kansai, Japan, Nov. 25-26, 1991.

He co-edited with P.W. Smith a Springer-Verlag book containing the proceedings of the First Topical Meeting on Photonic Switching. He has served on various conference committees including the 1988 Conference on Lasers and Electro-optics and for the Topical Meeting on Nonlinear Optical Materials held in June 1988 and August 1990. During the 1996-97 academic year he spent a sabbatical at ONERA in France and at the Communications Research Laboratory in Tokyo Japan working on free space and soliton communications systems.

Dr. Gustafson has been active in various committees and projects. He was on the organizing committee for the Northern California Branch of LEOS and was its first chairperson. He has served on the educational committee, the laser history project, and has been a member of the ADCOM of the Lasers and Electro-optics Society. He also served as an associate editor of Optics Letters. Currently Dr. Gustafson is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and a member of the American Physical Society and the IEEE.

Professor Gustafson's recent interests have included possible applications of coherent electron-hole interactions in semiconductors and quantum fluctuations in optical devices and communications systems. Professor Gustafson currently teaches EE 117: Electromagnetic Fields and Waves.

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