FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The University of Arkansas Microelectronics-Photonics (microEP) Graduate Program has been selected among a group of universityies that will share a five-year, $889,882 grant through the Department of Defense’s year 2000 MURI (Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative) competition. This grant, sponsored by the Army Research Office, will support research leading to the creation of optical computers.

The University of Arkansas research effort is part of a multi-university partnership on this project. Other partner universities receiving separate funding for their portion of this joint research project include the University of Central Florida, Lehigh University, and Georgetown University.

"Optical computing is one of the hottest research areas, nationally. Winning this grant is quite a testimony to the quality of the UA faculty team," said Chancellor John A. White. " I look forward to the enriching educational opportunities for our students, the discoveries, and the economic benefits to the state that will result from the research supported by this grant."

The grant, matched by $241,221 from the University of Arkansas, will support research efforts designed to create a new optical computer that uses special packets of light known as solitons instead of the electrons used in current computers. Controlling the interactions between these solitons could allow future computers to exist in three dimensions without the type of specific structure required by today’s two-dimensional integrated circuits.

"With this research we plan to move the leading edge of computer chip technology into an entirely new direction," said Gregg Salamo, UA physics professor and principal investigator for the grant. "We feel that using light in a tiny solid cube instead of electrons on the surface of a flat integrated circuit could result in devices that give us viable wearable computers with high capacity wireless connection to the internet."

The MURI program was created by the Department of Defense to enhance universities’ capabilities to perform basic science and engineering research and education in areas critical to national defense. MURI teams typically address problems requiring the combined research efforts in more than one traditional science or engineering discipline. MURI projects emphasis the rapid transition of basic research findings to practical applications.

"This MURI grant is another example of the multidisciplinary nature of high technology research on this campus," said Salamo "The MURI’s emphasis on transitioning basic research to real products fits the microEP program emphasis. The physical labs used are located in the physics department as part of that department’s photonic research emphasis built with support from the National Science Foundation and Experiemental Programs to Stimulate Competative Research (EPSCoR), and connecting the solitonic devices to the existing microelectronics world will require the Engineering Research Center’s HiDEC equipment and expertise."

Salamo will be the research director of the grant at the University of Arkansas. He will create a research group with funding provided by the grant. The funding will be used for research materials and activities, as well as for graduate student and post-doctoral research associate salaries.

As a MURI institutional partner, Salamo was allowed to submit a supplementary funding request for an additional MURI Fellowship for an outstanding currently enrolled graduate student. Gary Russell, a second year microEP graduate student at the U of A, was selected by MURI to receive one of the few four-year fellowships awarded, which will bring an additional $97,002 of funding to the solitonic computer research group.

"Gary is a very talented graduate student from this region, graduating from from Fort Smith Northside High School and from Hendrix University with a BA degree in Physics as a Goldwater Scholar," said Salamo. "He is the type of quality graduate student that the microEP program is attracting to our campus for graduate studies, and he is the type of graduate from our university that will help attract new high technology industry to our state.

"This type of new device technology research will act as a magnet for both new startups and new site locations for high tech industry," said Salamo. "That type of industry will supply both top technical jobs for our science and engineering graduates, as well as highly paid jobs in the traditional manufacturing areas for all Arkansas residents."

For more information about this program and research at the University of Arkansas, see the following web sites:

University of Arkansas, microEP Graduate Program

http://www.uark.edu/depts/microep

University of Arkansas, Physics Department

http://www.uark.edu/depts/physics

University of Arkansas, High Density Electronics Packaging Center

http://www.hidec.uark.edu

Department of Defense, MURI Program

http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/special/onrpgadh.htm