4 September 2002 -- Two researchers from the EU DOTCOM" project have received awards for their work in the field of gallium-arsenide based quantum dots for next-generation optical communication devices.
Prof. Dieter Bimberg at the Technical University of Berlin, Prof. Zhores Alferov at the Ioffe Institute, Russia (winner of the 2000 Nobel prize for physics) and other co-workers have received the State Prize of Science and Technology 2001 from the Russian Federation for their work on quantum dots and quantum dot lasers, as decreed by President Putin on 5 August.
Prof. Bimberg said, "The award reflects our effort over the past few years, but there are still many exciting discoveries to be made in the area of quantum dots. Our participation in the EU's DOTCOM project will help to accelerate these discoveries and identify the commercial possibilities for these structures."
DOTCOM project co-ordinator Prof. Ortwin Hess said the award shows the timely nature of quantum dot lasers, and that the participation of Prof. Bimberg and his group within the project will allow significant developments to be made.
The other award recipient was Sven Rodt from the Technical University of Berlin who received the best student paper award at the International Semiconductor Physics Conference, held in Edinburgh in early August, for his presentation 'Antibinding excitons in self-organised InAs/GaAs quantum dots.' This biannual conference is one of the foremost conferences on semiconductor physics and the accolade is, therefore, prestigious for any young researcher.
The DOTCOM project is funded by the European Union's Information Society Technology Programme, within Framework 5. The objective of DOTCOM (Quantum Dot Laser for Optoelectronic Information Communication) is the development of innovative quantum dot lasers and amplifiers based on gallium-arsenide quantum dot wafer technology.
Ten partners form the DOTCOM consortium, and bring together a depth of experience from materials growth and characterisation to optoelectronic devices used in data and optical communication systems. The partners are DLR Stuttgart, and TU Berlin (both Germany), Denmark's Research Centre COM, University College Cork (Ireland), the universities of of Bristol, Cambridge and Glasgow (UK), and UK companies Agilent Technologies and Intense Photonics.