Eli Yablonovitch
ProfessorInfo Links
Research Areas
Physical Electronics (PHY)Optoelectronics Research Group, high speed optical communications, photonic crystals at optical and microwave frequencies, the milli-Volt switch, optical antennas and solar cells.
Research Centers
Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science (E3S)Teaching Schedule
Fall 2020
EE 290-6. Physics Based Computation, WeFr 2:00PM - 3:29PM, Internet/OnlineBiography
Eli Yablonovitch introduced the idea that strained semiconductor lasers could have superior performance due to reduced valence band (hole) effective mass. With almost every human interaction with the internet, optical telecommunication occurs by strained semiconductor lasers.He is regarded as a Father of the Photonic BandGap concept, and he coined the term "Photonic Crystal". The geometrical structure of the first experimentally realized Photonic bandgap, is sometimes called “Yablonovite”.
In his photovoltaic research, Yablonovitch introduced the 4(n squared) (“Yablonovitch Limit”) light-trapping factor that is in worldwide use, for almost all commercial solar panels.
His mantra that "a great solar cell also needs to be a great LED”, is the basis of the world record solar cells: single-junction 29.1% efficiency; dual-junction 31.5%; quadruple-junction 38.8% efficiency; all at 1 sun.
His startup company Ethertronics Inc., shipped over 2 billion cellphone antennas.
He co-Founded Luxtera Inc., the originator and world leader of Silicon Photonics, now acquired by Cisco Systems. There is a 2-dimensional Photonic Crystal, in every Luxtera Silicon Photonics chip, millions of which are in major data centers, used by billions all around the globe.
Prof. Yablonovitch is elected as a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. He has been awarded the OSA Ives-Quinn Medal, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the IEEE Edison Medal, the Isaac Newton Medal of the UK Institute of Physics, the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society, the IEEE W.R. Cherry solar cell award, the Rank Prize (UK), the Harvey Prize (Israel), the IEEE Photonics Award, the IET Mountbatten Medal (UK), the Julius Springer Prize (Germany), the R.W. Wood Prize, the W. Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, and the Adolf Lomb Medal. He also has an honorary Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, the Hong Kong Univ. of Science & Technology, & McGill Univ., and is honorary Professor at Nanjing University.
Eli Yablonovitch is the Director of the NSF Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science (E3S), a multi-University Center headquartered at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Harvard University in 1972. He worked for two years at Bell Telephone Laboratories, and then became a professor of Applied Physics at Harvard. In 1979 he joined Exxon to do research on photovoltaic solar energy. Then in 1984, he joined Bell Communications Research, where he was a Distinguished Member of Staff, and also Director of Solid-State Physics Research. In 1992 he joined the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was the Northrop-Grumman Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering. Then in 2007 he became Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, where he holds the James & Katherine Lau Chair in Engineering.
Education
1972, Ph.D., Applied Physics, Harvard University1969, A.M., Applied Physics, Harvard University
1967, B.Sc., Physics, McGill University
Selected Publications
H. Fang, C. Battaglia, C. Carraro, S. Nemsak, B. Ozdol, J. S. Kang, H. A. Bechtel, S. B. Desai, F. Kronast, A. A. Unal, G. Conti, C. Conlon, G. K. Palsson, M. C. Martin, A. M. Minor, C. S. Fadley, E. Yablonovitch, R. Maboudian, and A. Javey, "Strong interlayer coupling in van der Waals heterostructures built from single-layer chalcogenides," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 111, pp. 6198--6202, 2014.H. Fang, H. A. Bechtel, E. Plis, M. C. Martin, S. Krishna, E. Yablonovitch, and A. Javey, "Quantum of optical absorption in two-dimensional semiconductors," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 29, pp. 11688--11691, 2013.
E. Yablonovitch, O. Miller, and S. Kurtz, "Strong Internal and External Luminescence as Solar Cells Approach the Shockley–Queisser Limit," IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 303-311, July 2012.
M. Staffaroni, J. Conway, S. Vedantam, J. Tang, and E. Yablonovitch, "“Circuit Analysis in Metal-Optics”,," Photonics and Nanostructures, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 166–176, Jan. 2012.
E. Yablonovitch, "Photonic Crystals: Semiconductors of Light," Scientific American, vol. 285, no. 6, pp. 47-55, Dec. 2001.
Awards, Memberships and Fellowships
Frederic Ives Medal/Quinn Prize, 2019Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering, 2018
IEEE Edison Medal, 2018
IEEE PVSC William R. Cherry Award, 2017
National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow, 2017
Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, 2016
Isaac Newton Medal, 2015
Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, 2014
Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London, 2013
IEEE Photonics Award, 2012
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Member, 2011
Harvey Prize, 2011
Mountbatten Medal, 2010
National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Member, 2003
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Member, 2003
Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics, 2001
R. W. Wood Prize, 1996
IEEE Photonics Society William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, 1993
Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow, 1992
American Physical Society (APS) Fellow, 1990
Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow, 1982
Sloan Research Fellow, 1978
OSA Adolf Lomb Medal, 1978