Kish, Frederick

2011 Distinguished Alumni Award

For the development of high brightness LED and for leadership in the commercialization of photonic integrated circuits.

For his PhD Frederick Kish Jr. worked under the direction of Professor Nick Holonyak Jr. His dissertation work is part of the core Al-bearing III-V native-oxide technology that has enabled the development of the highest performance vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and has been licensed to VCSEL manufacturers throughout the world. From 1992 to 1999, he was at Hewlett-Packard’s Optoelectronics Division where he co-invented and led the commercialization of the highest performance (efficiency) red-orange-yellow visible LEDs produced at the time. From 1999 to 2001, he was with Agilent Technologies as the department manager of the III-V R&D and Manufacturing Department in the Network Solution Division.

In 2001, he joined Infinera Corporation as vice president of Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) Development and Manufacturing Department, and later, as senior vice president of the Optical Integrated Components Group and member of the office of the COO. At Infinera, he co-invented and led the effort to research, develop, and commercialize the first practical large-scale PICs. The large-scale PICs are at the core of Infinera’s optical network products.

Frederick is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and IEEE. His awards include the IEEE David Sarnoff Award, the IEEE LEOS Engineering Achievement Award, the OSA Adolph Lomb Award, the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors Young Scientist Award, and the Young Alumni Achievement Award, R. T. Chien Award, and the E. C. Jordan Award from ECE ILLINOIS. He has co-authored over 100 U.S. Patents and over 60 peer-reviewed publications.