PASADENA, Calif.- Throughout his career with Intel, Ted Jenkins, a California Institute of Technology alumnus, helped put technology into our hands in the form of the personal computer. Kerry Vahala, a Caltech professor of applied physics, is working to give all of us the next-generation technology that will change our world.
Jenkins and his wife, Ginger, have established the Ted and Ginger Jenkins Professorship in Information Science and Technology at the Institute. Vahala will be its first occupant. He conducts research on the physics of photonic devices that can transmit data using light rather than electricity.
Information Science and Technology (IST) has emerged as a major intellectual focus for Caltech over the past two years, spanning numerous disciplines in engineering and the sciences. The primary areas of investigation are novel forms of computing such as DNA computing, where living biochemical mechanisms will be used to do computations in biological systems, networked information systems, and mathematical foundations.
"Networks, high-speed electronic processors, and light-wave communications are undergoing a fusion that will surely have a positive impact on our lives in the 21st Century," says Vahala. "The Ted and Ginger Jenkins Chair in Information Science and Technology recognizes that something new is emerging in that fusion and that Caltech's leadership role is only beginning. IST is not only affecting the way that we communicate and our productivity, but is broadly influencing how we view information, networks, and devices. As such, Information Science and Technology will involve nearly every discipline at Caltech."
Last February, Vahala announced the development of a tiny laser, called a Raman laser, that is 1,000 times more efficient than previous devices. The device could have significant applications for telecommunications and other areas where compact, highly efficient, and tunable lasers are desirable. The laser incorporates a small spherical glass bead and a stretched fiber-optic wire, and is especially efficient because of the way it stores light inside the microsphere, or resonator, and by the manner in which the stretched optical wire permits efficient coupling of light into the sphere.
As a result, very weak signals applied to the sphere from the fiber-optic wire can build to enormous intensities within the sphere itself. Raman lasers and amplifiers are important because they can operate over a very broad range of wavelengths. Raman amplifiers are already used widely in commercial long-distance fiber communications networks because of this wavelength flexibility.
"Information science and technology is one of the country's most vital areas and is the largest industry in the United States," says Jenkins, who, in 1966 after receiving his MS at Caltech, was recruited by Gordon Moore to work first for Fairchild Semiconductor, then for Intel. There, Jenkins held a variety of positions , including manager of microprocessor/peripheral manufacturing, and vice president and general manager of the memory components division. He retired in 1999 as vice president and director of corporate licensing.
"Advancing the state of the art in computers and networks is very exciting," Jenkins said. "The commercial and human impact can be huge. Engineering is all about applying basic science for people and business solutions, and that's what we hope this gift will promote."