Award recognises work on quantum well intermixing

Prof John H Marsh has been awarded the 2006 IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society's Engineering Achievement Award.

Prof John H Marsh, cofounder and Chief Technical Officer of Intense, has been awarded the 2006 IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society's (LEOS) Engineering Achievement Award.

The award is jointly presented to Professor Marsh and Prof Catrina Bryce, who collaborated while at the University of Glasgow "for extensive development and commercialisation of quantum well intermixing for photonic devices".

Prof Marsh has also been awarded the 2006 IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Service Award "for major contributions to LEOS governance and for leadership in promoting the development of LEOS as a global society".

"I am honoured to receive these distinguished awards", stated Prof Marsh.

"I have dedicated my academic and industrial careers to creating innovative, optoelectronic technologies".

"Quantum well intermixing is the culmination of years of research and has led to the development of a radical new architecture for monolithic semiconductor laser arrays that significantly increases power and reliability, and reduces costs for a wide range of applications in digital printing, defence, and manufacturing".

Quantum well intermixing (QWI) allows the properties of a semiconductor quantum well structure to be modified.

Multiple optical functions can be integrated monolithically.

QWI is used to create waveguides inside the laser cavities adjacent to each facet.

This leads to better electro-optical performance and allows large numbers of lasers to be manufactured in parallel, on the same chip, with industry-leading yield.

Prof Marsh is cofounder and CTO of Intense, and holds the post of Professor of Optoelectronic Systems in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow, where he established an internationally renowned research group that works with linear and nonlinear integrated optoelectronic systems.

Prof Marsh has extensive experience with semiconductor laser technology, ranging from epitaxial growth to the design and development of advanced integrated modules.

He has published or presented more than 420 papers, including 60 invited/plenary papers, and holds 11 patents.

He is a Chartered Electrical Engineer with a PhD in electronics from the University of Sheffield, a masters in electronics from the University of Liverpool, and a bachelors in electrical sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Active in numerous roles throughout the electronics and optics industries, Prof Marsh is a Fellow of the IET (UK), the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

He has organised many international conferences and chairs several committees focused on the electronics profession.

From 1999 to 2005 he was a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE/LEOS, serving two terms as a Vice President.

He has been a member of the Executive Committee the IET's Photonics Professional Network since 2001.

Prof Marsh also serves on the Industrial Advisory Board of the Department of Applied Physics and Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Dundee.

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