Recent News

• Sep. 1, 2023: The inspiring story of former PULS member Nazar Pyvovar, a Ukrainian student, is featured by the College of Science.
• Jun. 14, 2023: Dr. Duan has been appointed as the new Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives for the College of Science. See story here.
• Jun. 13, 2023: PULS graduate student Nazar Pyvovar passed his M.S. thesis oral defense. He is scheduled to graduate in August 2023.
• May 17, 2023: PULS doctoral candidate Rui Zhou has accepted a tenire-track Assistant Professor position at the University of North Alabama.
• Apr. 21, 2023: Dr. Duan was recognized in the UAH Annual Award Ceremony with two patent awards. See story here.
• Mar. 10, 2023: PhD student Rui Zhou passed her PhD oral defense in the OSE program. She is scheduled to officially receive her doctoral degree in August. Congratulations Dr. Zhou!

Past News

• Jul. 28, 2022: Two papers from PULS are published in Nature's Scientific Reports in July: A Mach-Zehnder Fabry-Perot hybrid fiber-optic interferometer operating at the thermal noise limit, 1st-authored by Nabil Hoque, and Dynamic photoelectron transport in stepwise-doped GaAs photocathodes, 1st-authored by Rui Zhou. Also see UAH story about Nabil's work.
• Jul. 11, 2022: Undergraduate student Nazar Pyvovar has published a research article entitled "Few-cycle excitation of atomic coherence: an analytical solution beyond the rotating-wave approximation" on Journal of Physics Communications (published by IOP) as the lead author. The paper is based on his extracurricular research and PH499 project with Dr. Duan. See his story here.
• Jul. 5, 2022: A U.S. patent filed by Dr. Duan and former PULS member Dr. Dipen Barot (currently with NIST) has been issued. The patent, entitled "Optical Frequency Discriminators Based on Fiber Bragg Gratings", presents a simple and versatile scheme to achieve optical frequency discrimination and FM/PM demodulation.
• May 23, 2022: PULS member and PhD student Rui Zhou is a recipient of the highly competitive Round 17 AL-GRSP fellowship sponsored by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE).
• May 19, 2022: PhD student Rui Zhou and Dr. Duan gave two presentations at this year's CLEO conference (May 15-20, 2022, San Jose, CA).
• May 3, 2022: Former PULS graduate Dr. Ravi. P. Gollapalli received tenure from the University of North Alabama. He has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Technology at UNA since 2017.
• May 2, 2022: Two PULS members, Bing Zeng and Nabil M. R. Hoque, officially received their doctoral degrees today. Congratulations, Dr. Zeng and Dr. Hoque!!
• Apr. 28, 2022: PULS research on time-wavelength optical sampling (TWOS) spectroscopy is highlighted in a recent featured article on Advances in Engineering.
• Apr. 22, 2022: Dr. Duan received the 2022 College of Science Outstanding Faculty Award.
• Apr. 12, 2022: A U.S. patent filed by Dr. Duan and former PULS member Dr. Lin Yang (currently with UNC-Chapel Hill) has been issued. The patent, which is entitled "Time-wavelength optical sampling systems and methods for determining composition of a sample based on detected pulses of different durations", presents a novel spectroscopic scheme called time-wavelength optical sampling (TWOS).
• Mar. 4, 2022: Graduate student and PULS member Nabil M. R. Hoque passed his PhD oral defense. His dissertation title is "Thermal-Noise-Limited Interferometric Fiber-Optic Sensing".
• Jan. 25, 2022: Graduate student Rui Zhou gave an oral presentation at this year's SPIE Photonics West Conference in San Francisco, CA.
• Nov. 22, 2021: Graduate student and PULS member Bing Zeng passed his PhD oral defense today and is on schedule to graduate in spring 2022. His dissertation title is "CEP-Dependent Quantum Coherence Driven by Few-Cycle Pulses". Congratulations Bing!
• Oct. 14, 2021: Undergraduate student Sara Mog, who joined PULS in the summer through the 2021 Honors Capstone Summer Research Program and is currently conducting her HON 499 capstone research under the supervision of Dr. Duan, has won first place (tied) in the 14th annual Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium (VBS) student poster competition with her poster entitled Fiber-Optic Temperature/Heat-Flux Sensor for Future Venus-Landing Missions. See story here.
• May 18, 2021: PULS Ph.D. student Nabil Hoque is one of the 78 students worldwide to receive the prestigious Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from SPIE this year. See story here.
• May 18, 2021: Nabil Hoque received his 3rd consecutive AL-GRSP fellowship ($25,000) sponsored by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE).
• May 12, 2021: PULS member Srikamal Soundararajan received his PhD in physics. His dissertation is entitled Time-Wavelength Optical Sampling Spectroscopy. He will move on to pursue postdoc research at UNC-Chapel Hill.
• Apr. 16, 2021: Dr. Duan is the recipient of the 2021 UAH Graduate Mentor Award.
• Apr. 12, 2021: A featured story aired today on local TV station WHNT NEWS 19 reports the research of Dr. Wu and Dr. Duan on remote fiber-optic water turbidity monitoring. See the clip here.
• Jan. 15, 2021: PULS member Srikamal Soundararajan passed his PhD defense today and is on schedule to graduate in spring 2021. His dissertation title is Time-Wavelength Optical Sampling Spectroscopy. Congratulations Srikamal!
• Dec. 1, 2020: Led by Dr. Tingting Wu of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (PI) and Dr. Duan (Co-PI), a research team will study a novel sensor network using glass fibers to safeguard drinking water supplies under a new EPA P3 grant. See stories by UAH and Drinking Water website.
• Oct. 20, 2020: A U.S. patent filed by Dr. Duan and former PULS member Dr. Dipen Barot has been issued. The patent, which is entitled Signal Analysis System and Methods, presents a novel method to analyze frequency/phase modulated signals.
• Sep. 17, 2020: Three PULS members, Bing Zeng, Nabil Hoque, and Srikamal Soundararajan, presented their research findings at the 2020 OSA Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science Conference, held online on Sep. 14-17, 2020.
• May 24, 2020: Nabil Hoque received his second consecutive AL-GRSP fellowship ($25,000) sponsored by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE).
• May 12, 2020: Long time PULS member Hemang Jani received his doctoral degree in OSE. His dissertation is entitled Ultrafast Time-Frequency Spectroscopy Based on Few-Cycle Pump-Probe Transient Reflectometry. His research has recently been featured on UAH headlines. Congratulations, Hemang, and thank you for your immense contribution to the PULS group over the years!
• Mar. 12, 2020: Dr. Duan has been awarded the 2020 UAH Charger Innovation Fund (CIF).
• Mar. 11, 2020: Dr. Duan has been promoted to full professor, beginning AY2020-21.
• Mar. 6, 2020: Former PULS member and current OSE PhD candidate Reem Alsalamah passed her dissertation defense on Improved Modeling and Verification of Metrology on Small Radius Optics. Her dissertation research was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Reardon of CAO. 
• Feb. 25, 2020: Three papers from PULS (by Dipen Barot, Nabil Hoque, and Rui Zhou, respectively) have been accepted by CLEO 2020 (May 10-15, San Jose, CA).
• Feb. 3, 2020: Graduate student Hemang Jani presented his paper entitled Pump-probe study of ultrafast response of GaAs photocathodes grown by MOCVD and MBE at SPIE OPTO 2020 in the Photonics West Conference, Feb. 2-7, San Francisco, CA, USA.
• Dec. 16, 2019: PULS member and graduate student Dipen Barot officially received his PhD in OSE today. His dissertation title is "Analysis and mitigation of laser frequency drift and its application in fiber-optic sensing". Congratulations, Dr. Barot!
• May 29, 2019: UAH College of Science Graduate Student Wins Prestigious Fellowship: Nabil M. R. Hoque, PhD student under Prof. Lingze Duan in the Physics & Astronomy Department, has been awarded the 2019-2020 Graduate Research Scholars Program (GRSP) fellowship ($25,000) sponsored by Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE).
• May 10, 2019: PhD students Nabil Hoque and Dipen Barot presented their research at this year's CLEO conference (May 5-10, 2019, San Jose, CA).
• Dec. 19, 2018: A story about PULS member Hemang Jani is featured on SPIE Face of Photonics.
• Nov. 15, 2018: Dr. Duan received a NASA EPSCoR Rapid Response Research (R3) grant for his proposed research on "Development of Fiber-Optic High-Temperature Heat Flux Sensors for Venus Exploration."
• Aug. 30, 2018: PULS member Bing Zeng was one of about 20 students from the U.S. to attend this year's Siegman International School on Lasers (Jul. 28 - Aug. 4, Island of Hven in Sweden). See story here.
• Jul. 10, 2018: PULS Ph.D. student Hemang Jani received the prestigious Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from SPIE. See story here.
• Jan. 30, 2018: Graduate student Hemang Jani presented his work on Femtosecond Pump-Probe Study of GaAs/AlGaAs Photocathode Structures at the 2018 SPIE Photonics West Conference, Jan. 27-Feb. 1, San Francisco, CA, USA.
• Nov. 8, 2017: UAH Headlines features a story about PULS members Dipen Barot and Hemang Jani attending the prestigious Siegman International School on Lasers in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
  
• Nov. 7, 2017: PULS research is featured on the November edition of Menlo Systems News & Insights. 
• Oct. 4, 2017: Dr. Duan gave an invited talk entitled Ultrafast Optical Sampling and Its Applications in Imaging, Spectroscopy and Lidar at the 2017 EMN Ultrafast Meeting, Oct. 2-6, Orlando, FL, USA.
• Sep. 22, 2017: Graduate student Dipen Barot presented his research on frequency and phase noise analysis using electronic frequency dividers at this year's Frontier in Optics/Laser Sciences (FiO/LS), Sep. 17-21, Washington, D.C., USA.
• May 23, 2017: PULS member Hemang Jani, PhD in OSE, was sponsored by the National Photonics Initiative (NPI) for the Congressional Visits Day (CVD) STEM on the Hill trip to Washington, D.C. He was on a team that met with U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama's 5th Congressional District and Congressional staffers in other offices in support of photonics and science research. See Press Release.
• May 15, 2017: UAH undergraduate student Dane Rich, Junior in Optical Engineering, has received a $7,898 NSF REU grant to fund his summer research with Dr. Duan. His project will focus on the fabrication and characterization of conductive CdSe quantum dot thin films. See Press Release.
• Mar. 1, 2017: Graduate student Bing Zeng and former PULS member Dr. Lin Yang will present their research at this year's Conference on Laser and Electro-Optics (CLEO), May 14-19, San Jose, CA.
• Dec. 12, 2016: Graduate student Lin Yang received her PhD in OSE this past weekend. Her dissertation is on "Dynamic optical sampling by cavity tuning and its applications in ranging, imaging and spectroscopy." She has accepted a postdoc position at the Physics Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• Sep. 26, 2016: PULS welcomes three visiting scholars from China this fall: Dr. Shuqin Zhang (China Jiliang University), Dr. Chunfang Rao (Jiangxi Normal University), and Dr. Liang Chen (China Jiliang University).
• May 6, 2016: Dr. Duan has been awarded a $340,314 grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices (EPMD) program. The 3-year project aims to study the fundamental limit of fiber-optic sensors in the infrasonic region and is a joint effort between Dr. Duan (PI, Physics) and Dr. Ken Q. H. Zuo (Co-PI, MAE). See Press Release.
• Oct. 19, 2015: Dr. Duan hosted the OSA Photonic Detection (PD) Technical Group Panel Discussion at this year's FiO/LS Conference (Oct. 18-22, San Jose, CA). Dr. Duan is currently serving as a committee member in the PD Group.
• Aug. 3, 2015: A feature article about PULS is published on the August issue of International Innovation, a UK-based scientific magazine.
• Aug. 1, 2015: Four current and former PULS members will be presenting their research at international conferences this fall: Hemang Jani and Ravi Gollapalli at the IEEE Photonic Conference (Oct. 4-8, Reston, VA); Lin Yang and Dr. Duan at FiO/LS 2015 (Oct. 18-22, San Jose, CA).
• Jun. 1, 2015: Graduate student Dipen Barot has been awarded the Graduate Student Scholarship Program (GRSP) fellowship for AY 2015-16 by the AL Commission on Higher Education. Congratulations!
• Mar. 19, 2015: Graduate student Lin Yang passed her OSE Ph.D. Qualifying Exam today. Her dissertation research is on optical sampling by cavity tuning and its applications in ranging, imaging and spectroscopy. Congratulations, Lin!
• Jan. 6, 2015: For the 3rd year in a row, Dr. Duan has been awarded the NASA EPSCoR RID grant for his research on low-cost ultra-stable semiconductor lasers.
• Dec. 15, 2014: Dr. Duan is among the 10 recipients who have been awarded this year's UAH Research Infrastructure Fund. See Press Release.
• Dec. 4, 2014: Dr. Duan has recently been promoted to Senior Member of IEEE. IEEE Senior Membership is the highest grade for which IEEE members can apply. See Story.
• Sep. 15, 2014: Graduate student Hemang Jani passed the 2014 OSE Preliminary Exam. Congratulations, Hemang!
• Aug. 17, 2014: PULS welcomes 3 new members this fall: OSE graduate students Bing Zeng and Dipen Barot, and physics graduate student Hosna Sultana. Welcome! See group photos.
• Jun. 3, 2014: Graduate student Reem Alsalamah successfully passed her M.S. thesis defense. She plans to stay at PULS after receiving her M.S. degree to pursue a Ph.D. in Optical Science and Engineering. Congratulations, Reem!
• May 13, 2014: Graduate student Lin Yang has been awarded the Graduate Student Scholarship Program (GRSP) fellowship by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education for the 3rd year in a row. See Press Release.
• Apr. 30, 2014 : Dr. Duan has been awarded the 2014 UAH Individual Investigator Distinguished Research (IIDR) grant and the 2014 UAH Research Infrastructure Fund (RIF).
• Mar. 26, 2014: Graduate student Lin Yang and the Femtosecond Frequency Comb Lab are featured in The RedStone Rocket, a weekly newspaper published by the Army Redstone Arsenal. See Link and Photo.
• Jan. 13, 2014: Dr. Duan has been awarded the 2014-15 NASA EPSCoR RID grant. The grant will fund his further research on low-cost semiconductor lasers with ultra-high frequency stability.
• Dec. 14, 2013 : Graduate student Hemang Jani has received a M.S. degree from the Physics Department. He will continue to pursue a Ph.D. as an OSE student with PULS.
• Aug. 17, 2013 : A new student organization, the Society of Optics Students (SOS), has been launched this fall at UAH. The purpose of this organization is to (a) promote the growth and understanding of the importance of optics in UAH and the north Alabama region and (b) provide a means for undergraduate and graduate students to get involved in optics-related research and educational activities. SOS is established as an integrated component of Dr. Lingze Duan's NSF Career project. Dr. Duan is currently serving as the faculty supervisor and physics graduate student Mark Sterrett is the president.
• Jun. 5, 2013 : Graduate student Lin Yang has won the Graduate Student Scholarship Program (GRSP) Award from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. Lin Yang is currently working on ultrafast lasers and precision frequency metrology. She has published multiple papers on leading optics journals and international conferences. This is her second year in a row to win the GRSP, which is awarded to outstanding graduate students in the field of science and engineering in the 7 research universities in Alabama.
• Apr. 4, 2013: Dr. Duan is a recipient of the 2013 UAH Research Infrastructure Fund. The grant will help establish a new lab the Physics Department for research on ultrafast nanophotonics in the few-cycle regime.
• Apr. 2, 2013: Undergraduate student Josiah Mullins has received the 2013 UAH Research and Creative Experience for Undergraduates (RCEU) award. He will be funded to perform research on "sol-gel deposition of semiconductor quantum dots" under Dr. Duan's supervision in summer 2013.
• Mar. 15, 2013: Dr. Duan has been tenured and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor by the Department of Physics, the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
• Feb. 11, 2013: Dr. Duan has been awarded the 2013-14 NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development (RID) grant. The grant will support his research on "Compact, low-cost semiconductor lasers with ultra-high frequency stability."
• Feb. 7, 2013: Dr. Duan has received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the NSF Electrical, Communications, and Cyber Systems (ECCS) Division. The 5-year, $400,000 grant will support his research on ultrafast dynamics in semiconductor nanoparticles. The project aims to use the coherent response of such nanostructures to develop a simple technique that can directly probe the carrier-envelope phase of femtosecond optical pulses, also called the "absolute phase of light". If succeeded, the research could have a transformational impact on optical communication, information processing, sensing and other ultrafast technologies. For details about the project, please see Press Release.
• Jan. 2, 2013: A paper about optical probing of the intergalactic baryons, authored by Dr. Richard Lieu and Dr. Duan, has been published by Astrophysics Journal Letters. If the effect proposed in the paper is proved to be observable, it could fundamentally change our understanding of the universe.
• May 9, 2012: Graduate student Lin Yang has won the prestigious Alabama Graduate Research Scholars Program (GRSP) Award. She is one of the 7 recipients of this annual award from UAH this year. She will receive $25,000 fellowship toward her study and research at UAH. The award can be renewed up to 3 years.
• Apr. 2, 2012: Mr. Changjun Hu has joined PULS as a visiting scholar from the China Academy of Telecommunications Research. Mr. Hu's research interest is in fiber-optic remote delivery of high-precision clock signals.
• Jan. 31, 2012: Graduate student Lin Yang has passed the OSE preliminary Exam with the highest overall score in the last 5 years.
• Oct. 20, 2011: Dr. Jinsong Nie from the State Key Laboratory of Pulsed Power Laser Technology (Herfei, China) has joined PULS as a visiting scholar. Dr. Nie will participate in research on atmospheric clock transfer using diode lasers.
• Jul. 1, 2011: A new Femtosecond Laser Frequency Comb Lab has been established at the Physics Department with the support of Dr. Duan's NSF-MRI grant. The lab is equipped with a state-of-the-art Optical Frequency Synthesizer (MenloSystems FC1500-250). The lab makes UAH one of the only few places in the nation that are able to perform high-precision metrology and spectroscopy with a frequency comb.
• May 6, 2011: Ravi P. Gollapalli became the first doctoral graduate of PULS. Congratulations, Ravi!
• Apr. 15, 2011: Dr. Duan was invited to give a seminar talk at Department of Physics, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
• Apr. 8, 2011: Graduate student Ravi P. Gollapalli won a 2nd-Place Prize in the poster contest in the 2011 Huntsville Electro-Optical Society Spring Cookout. Great job, Ravi!
• Jan. 27, 2011: Dr. Duan is one of the recipients of the 2011 Alabama NASA EPSCoR Seed Grant by the NASA/Alabama Space Grant Consortium. The 1.5-year project aims to develop a new target-tracking technique based on femtosecond frequency combs.
• Jan. 8, 2011: OSE student Lin Yang joined PULS to pursue a doctoral degree.
• Dec. 15, 2010: Dr. Duan has been awarded the 2011 UAH Junior Faculty Distinguished Research grant, which will support his research on a novel scheme of optical coherent tomography.
• Nov. 19, 2010: Dr. Duan gave an invited talk at the Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors of Arizona State University
• Oct. 25, 2010: Dr. Duan was invited to chair the Photonic Sensor session in the Frontier in Optics 2010 (FiO)/Laser Science XXVI (LS) Conference.
• Oct. 21, 2010: Graduate student Ravi P. Gollapalli successfully passed his Ph.D. dissertation defense. His dissertation title is "Phase Coherent Supercontinuum Generation and Atmospheric Delivery of Frequency References via Atmosphere"
• Sep. 20, 2010: A proposal led by Dr. Duan has been awarded by the NSF-MRI program for the acquisition of a femtosecond frequency comb laser system. The 3-year project has a total cost of $400k of which $280k will be supported by NSF. The project is in collaboration with Prof. Seyed Sadeghi of the Physics Department, Prof. John Williams and Prof. Robert Lindquist of the ECE Department, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Army Aviation and Missile RD&E Center, and the Optical Sciences Corporation.
• Nov. 2, 2009: Ayshah Alatawi passed her M.S. thesis defense. Her thesis title is "An Experimental Study of Microwave Clock Transfer via Free-Space Transmission of Optical Frequency Combs."
• Oct. 7, 2009: Charles A. Schambeau passed his M.S. thesis defense. His thesis title is "APPLICATIONS OF VELOCITY SELECTIVE OPTICAL PUMPING OF ATOMIC VAPORS USING PUMP-PROBE SPECTROSCOPY."