Graham Reed
University of Southampton

Graham Reed is Professor of Silicon Photonics at the University of Southampton, UK, He is recognised as one of the pioneers who first established the field of Silicon Photonics worldwide, and he has devoted most of his career to the field. He established the Silicon Photonics Research Group in 1989 (Surrey, then Southampton Universities), and the first Silicon Photonics company, Bookham Technology (now Oclaro), founded by his student Dr Andrew Rickman, emerged from the Group, adopting the work of the Group as their core business. Rickman estimates that Bookham’s contribution to the UK exchequer exceeded £500 Million.

Reed has particularly contributed to the technical development of silicon modulators, being the first to publish the following: the idea of the pre-emphasis technique, the first 1GHz modulator design, the first depletion modulator design (now an industry standard), the first 40Gb/s modulator with high extinction ratio, the first 40Gb/s polarisation independent modulator, the first slow wave modulator, and the first 50Gb/s modulator, to name but a few contributions. Reed has served on and chaired numerous international conference committees, including founding and chairing the Silicon Photonics Symposium at Photonics West for 14 years, and is currently the Chair of the entire OPTO group of conferences at Photonics West (36 conferences), and is currently a member of 5 other international committees. He has also served on the Board of The European Optical Society (EOS) and the EOS Executive Committee (both until 2018), and is currently a member of The Board of the MIT Microphotonics Center, and a visiting Professor at The Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

He has authored more than 500 papers on Silicon Photonics, presented more than 140 Plenary/keynote/invited international talks and filed 19 patents. He has published 2 books including the first Silicon Photonics textbook in the world. He has been a consultant to leading companies in the field including Bookham Technology (UK), Intel (USA), Kotura (USA), Rockley Photonics (UK/USA), QinetiQ (UK), Hitachi (Japan), Fiberhome (China), Schlumberger (UK), and CompoundTek (Singapore). He has directed international award winning research over a period of almost 30 years, with research income exceeding £40million ($50Million USD). Recent prizes and awards include election as a Fellow of SPIE (2012), the IET Crompton Medal for Achievement in Energy (2013) a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (2014), election as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2017), and Best Invited Paper at IEEE BICOP (2018), all for contributions to Silicon Photonics.

NOMINEES
Peter O'Brien, Peter De Dobbelaere

Martin Schell
Fraunhofer HHI

Martin Schell is chair for Optic and Optoelectronic Integration at the Technical University of Berlin, and Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany. He also is a board member of the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), of OptecBB (Competence Network for Optical Technologies in Berlin/Brandenburg, Germany), and member of the Photonics21 Board of Stakeholders. Prior to Fraunhofer, he worked for Infineon Fiber optics as head of production and product line manager FTTH, and at The Boston Consulting Group. Martin has successfully lead several photonic integrated circuits from idea to installation in the field. He always attempts to be a voice of reason when it comes to evaluating various photonic integration approaches and their economic potential.

NOMINEES
Mike Wale, Lionel Kimerling, Beck Mason

H-2020 Project CARDIS
An EU funded project, with the goal of early stage cardiovascular disease detection using Silicon Photonics.

In the Horizon 2020 project CARDIS, imec, Medtronic, and 7 other partners, have developed a silicon-PIC-based, low-cost, point-of-care screening device for cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Early identification of individuals at risk of CVD allows for early intervention to halt or reverse the pathological process. Assessment of arterial stiffness by measurement of aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV) is included in the latest guidelines for CVD risk prediction. However, no medical device has reached to GP’s offices to screen large populations based on the measurement of aPWV, which is mainly due to the high cost and difficult operation procedures of the currently available devices. But CARDIS may change this situation by providing a cheaper PIC-based device to measure the aPWV with modest expert skills from the operator. This will help to reduce the overall medical cost caused by CVD.

The prototype device was proved to be easy to use in a clinical feasibility study on 100 patients. The quality of the device readings was found to be very good. In carotid-femoral PWV measurements - the gold standard to estimate arterial stiffness - the performance of the PIC-based device turned out to be as good as the commercial PWV-measurement device. Now, the PIC-based device is being further tested for even simpler clinical procedures.

NOMINEES
Lumentum, Genalyte, Medlumics, II-VI

PHIX Photonics Assembly
Vision in creating a volume production centre for PIC-based modules.

PHIX Photonics assembly was founded in 2017 by Lionix International. PHIX is offering a cost effective manufacturing service for Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC)-based modules in large volumes. PHIX is located at the High Tech Factory in Enschede, the Netherlands. PHIX offers assembly services for all three major PIC technology platforms (InP, Si and TriPleX) and is specialized in hybrid integration of multiple PICs in one module both with optical fiber interfaces as well as free space optical interfaces through micro optical components.

NOMINEES
Technobis, Sicoya, Acacia Communications, NeoPhotonics

Lightwave Logic
Development of 100GHz polymer based PICs.

Lightwave Logic develops innovative optical materials and devices for the Algorithmic Age. They seek to lower the friction for moving the ever-growing amounts of data that characterize our times. Their target customer base is the optical datacom and telecom hardware suppliers that interconnect the vast pools of data residing with cloud providers, communications providers, enterprises and governments. Their solutions start with our own engineered materials which are used in devices and packages that we design to optimize performance. The resulting components transmit data at unmatched speeds. They require less electric power than their conventional counterparts. Their fabrication is simpler and requires less expensive equipment.

NOMINEES
Intengent, Rockley Photonics , Teem Photonics, EFFECT Photonics, Infinera, Intel Corporation, Broadcom

VLC Photonics
Outstanding contribution to creation and support of the ecosystem for fabless PIC development.

VLC Photonics has been, from its foundation as a spin-off, a pioneer in the new business model of a photonic design house. Being a leading company in the field, it has grown over the years to provide many more services, has partnered with many software provides, foundries and packagers to mature their platforms, and has helped hundreds of customers in developing their own PICs, with some of them reaching the market through start-ups and Fortune 500 corporations. Overall, I believe without doubt that it has significantly helped the whole photonic integration field to advance in the last decade.

NOMINEES
Luxtera, Ciena, Lumentum, Intel Corporation, Lumentum