[CENIC]
 [Featured CENIC Star Performer]


Other Star Performers

Larry Smarr, UCSD/Calit2
Eric Frost, SDSU
Joaquín Alvarado, SFSU
John Graham, SDSU
Bob Goldberg, UCLA
Scott Friedman, UCLA
Doug Cremer, CVC
Alan Willner, USC
Harvey Newman, Caltech
Pierre Thiry, CCSF
Dennis Davino, Cypress
Richard Weinberg, USC
John Avakian
Ed Johanson
Radhika Mysore, UCSD
Tom DeFanti, UCSD/Calit2
Leonard Kleinrock, UCLA
Rich Wolski, UCSB
Steve Vogt, UCSB
Shaya Fainman, UCSB
Tim Calhoon, CCC Tech Ctr.
Brian Shepard, USC
John Orcutt, UCSD/SIO
David Lassner, U Hawaii
Amin Vahdat, UCSD
Blaine Morrow, CCC Confer
Holger Schmidt

UCSC Applied Optics Group
Holger Schmidt at the AOG 		[Holger Schmidt Picture]
The creation of a data processing device that can act upon light-based "photonic" data would enable a light-based network from end to end, even replacing the current generation of switches and routers at the heart of networks like CalREN. In a boost for green sensibilities, such devices would even operate at room temperature.

The Applied Optics Group at UC Santa Cruz, under the direction of Baskin School of engineering Professor Holger Schmidt, is pursuing this grail of computer engineering by creating silicon chips which can slow light significantly (a factor of 1200). While this research does not currently take place over CalREN, it promises a transformation of the ways in which advanced fiber-based networks like CalREN operate, perhaps even creating computational platforms built into the very fabric of the network.