UNC Charlotte Optoelectronics Center Names Associate Director

Professor Eric G. Johnson, director of the Micro-Photonics Lab in the College of Optics & Photonics/CREOL, University of Central Florida, has been named the new associate director of the Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Johnson, PhD, a fellow of SPIE, joined the faculty at CREOL in 2000. Prior to that, he was vice president of research and development at Digital Optics Corp. in Charlotte. His research interests include diffractive and micro-optical systems and applications, data communications and micro-optics fabrication. The Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications recently moved into a new 90,000-sq-ft facility which will accommodate some 25 optics faculty and several user facilities, including a cleanroom for photonic device fabrication. The center is also promoting industry partnerships and has laboratory space allocated for commercial use. There are approximately 40 graduate students in the newly approved graduate programs in optical science and engineering who use its resources.