This program is designed to attract undergraduate, particularly women and minorities, into lasers and optics research, with emphasis on lightwave technology as an emerging technology. Many recent studies, including the National of Academies recent report on Photonics, identify this as one of the key technical growth areas of the future. Inspiration for these students to continue into graduate school will come from participating in research projects within the interdisciplinary Center for Laser Studies. This research organization is unusual for its large percentage of women and minorities, both on its staff and in its graduate student population. In 1989 the Center received REU site funding and developed a very successful program which included three Chicanos, two females and one black student. This gives the Center a chance to better recruit minority and women undergraduates and to provide more opportunity to participate in research, inspiring them to continue in graduate students. The projects include noise properties of semiconductor arrays, characterization of nonlinear services, fabrication and characterization of heterojunction lasers, solid stat lasers, fiber- optics power-by-light headset, and thermal transport in thin films.
