2010 News Archive

October 13, 2010: Dr. Matthew A. Stough from Osram Sylvania talks about "Thinking Differently about LED Lighting" [...]

The second event in the Industrial Speaker Series filled again the room for Dr. Matthew Stough's discussion of Osram's view of the future of solid state lighting. Dr. Stough is a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the center. The event was transmitted live to 9 remote sites.

Click here for the event flier that includes abstract.

September 15, 2010: Smart Lighting ERC Held the Inaugural Event for the Industrial Speaker Series [...]

The Smart Lighting ERC Industrial Speaker Series at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a seminar series aiming to present an industry perspective on smart lighting technologies and markets. In addition, in line with the ERC mission to teach students about life in industry, each speaker will be sharing their personal story of how they came into industry and how their career path has influenced their life.

The events are open to all RPI faculty and students, not only participants in the ERC. In addition, presentations will be made available live via Adobe Connect to the core partner institutions Boston University and The University of New Mexico, outreach partner schools Howard University, Morgan State University and Rose Hulman Institute of Technnology, as well as to the industrial members.

The opening of the series took place on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. Annette Finsterbusch, founder of Applied Ventures, the investing arm of industrial member Applied Materials, talked about “Investing in Solid State Lighting: the Past, the Present and the Future”. In front of a standing-room-only audience, Ms. Finsterbusch discussed the investment landscape of the lighting industry, focusing on the recent past and present opportunities. She also discussed how today’s early stage technology development fuels the future investment opportunity pipeline, and the key aspects of successful  start-up companies that investors are looking for. The seminar ended in a lively questions and answers session with members of the audience. Graduate student Kayvan Rafiee from the Mechanical Engineering Department said “This was such a wonderful event and one of best talks at RPI I have ever been to!”

The next events in the series are presentations by the Industrial Advisory Board member Dr. Matt Stough from Osram Sylvania on October 13, 2010, and Scientific Advisory Board member Kevin Dowling, VP of Research and Development from MC10 on November 17, 2010.

August 19, 2010: SiC Systems, Inc and the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center (ERC) awarded National Science Foundation Grant to develop Increased Efficiency Green LEDs [...]

GOLDEN, COLORADO, and TROY, NY, August 19, 2010. The National Science Foundation awarded a $200,000 grant to SiC Systems, Inc. to partner with the Smart Lighting ERC in order to develop LEDs with increased efficiency.

SiC Systems' unique ability to produce large area, 6" Silicon Carbide substrates in different crystallographic orientations will be combined with the Smart Lighting ERC's capability to develop advanced LEDs with higher performance than those routinely available today on sapphire substrates. While high power blue GaN LEDs are widely used now for solid state lighting applications, there are still significant barriers in developing efficient GaN LEDs at other wavelengths that will be needed to achieve high performance lighting systems with high color fidelity.

By combining advanced Silicon Carbide structures from SiC Systems with innovative LED growth and fabrication technology under development at RPI in Professor Wetzel's group, this team will explore new approaches to driving GaN to higher levels of efficiency at a broader range of operating wavelengths than can be obtained today with conventional LED growth on sapphire substrates.

Additionally, this collaboration will train and engage graduate and undergraduate researchers in an area of great technological importance, both at SiC Systems and at the ERC. SicSystems Inc. anticipates as many as 25 new jobs will be created with the increased demand from this technological break through.

The awardees would like to acknowledge the SBIR/STTR and ERC programs for providing the funding.

August 5, 2010: ERC graduate student Alp Altar from Boston University receives best student presentation award for the paper "Light tunneling in multi-layered plasmonic crystals" at SPIE Optics and Photonics conference in San Diego, CA.

August 4, 2010: Bob Karlicek, ERC Director, presented an invited talk at the Lester Eastman Conference in Troy, NY. Lighting: Past, Present and Future [...]

August 2, 2010: Bob Karlicek, ERC Director, presented an invited talk at the SPIE Optics and Photonics in San Diego, CA: Smart Lighting: New Roles for Light in the Solid State Lighting World [...]

June, 2010: Bob Karlicek, ERC Director, presented at the OIDA Green Photonics Forum, Santa Clara, CA: Smart Lighting:A Second Wave in Solid State Lighting?. [...]

May, 2010: ERC present at the Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency in Santa Barbara, CA:Novel Applications of LEDs for Energy Savings A Systems Level View. [...]

January 4, 2010: Robert Karlicek is the new director of the Smart Lighting ERC [...]

Dr. Robert F. Karlicek, Jr., a globally-known LED industry expert has joined RPI as Professor in the Electrical, Computer and System Engineering department and Director of the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center. Prior to joining RPI, he spent over 30 years in industrial research and R&D management positions with corporations including AT&T Bell Labs, EMCORE, General Electric, Gore Photonics, Microsemi, Luminus Devices and SolidUV.  His technical experience includes epitaxial growth of high performance LEDs and lasers, advanced device fabrication and high power LED packaging, thermal management, control systems design and applications in solid state lighting as well as other novel LED uses such as IR and UV LED applications.

Dr. Karlicek is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops.  He obtained his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and has over 40 published technical papers and 24 U.S. patents.

January 4, 2010: Silvia Mioc joins the Smart Lighting ERC as the Director of Industrial Collaborations [...]

Dr. Silvia Mioc received her PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management. Her professional experience spans displays, medical devices and optical technologies, in settings ranging from academia and national labs to startups, large companies and non-profits. In addition, she has been involved in working with state, local and regulatory agencies, and has lobbied federal legislators for sustained increased funding for R&D and Math and Science Education. She speaks 5 languages, and has done business in Europe and Asia.

Dr. Mioc comes to RPI after having been with Corning, Inc. since 2006 as a Business Development Manager in the Display Future’s Emerging Markets and Technologies group. In that role, she was a key player in bringing to the corporation the understanding of the latest developments in the display industry in order to feed and support early R&D projects in the pipeline. Among other responsibilities, she led the strategic external engagement with academia and industry. She also organized complex series of events targeted at increasing the visibility of Corning Display Futures group and establishing a dialogue with key thought leaders in the industry.

Prior to Corning, Dr.Mioc spent 8 years in the medical devices industry in both technical and business development roles. She worked in Colorado for the pulse oximetry division of Datex-Ohmeda, a Finnish company that became part of GE Healthcare in 2003.

In parallel, she has been involved with the Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA), a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the environment for optical technologies in Colorado. She has been active in the organization since 2001, being its president from 2003 to 2006. She spearheaded expanding program reach to strategically exploit synergies with biotech, medical devices, nanotech and defense/homeland security sectors, and formed numerous win-win partnerships with service providers to increase member benefits. Under Silvia’s leadership, CPIA steadily grew its impact, visibility, and reach at state level, nationally and internationally. Additionally, she led the transition of the association from an all-volunteer base to employing an executive director through funding secured via a grant from the state of Colorado.