Simarjeet Saini

Simarjeet Saini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He completed his doctorate at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2001 under the guidance of Professor Mario Dagenais. Professor Saini’s Ph.D. thesis was on design and development of a new platform technology for monolithic integration of photonic devices called Passive Active Resonant Coupler (PARC). The resulting technology led to the foundation of a start-up company called Covega Corporation in Jessup, Maryland. Professor Saini worked as the Lead Optoelectronics Device Engineer at Covega and later, as a Lead Applications Engineer. He led the design and development of Covega’s single angled facet chips, semiconductor optical amplifiers and high power lasers.

In August 2004, Professor Saini co-founded Altanet Communications, a start-up company that focused on ethernet based metro area networks with less than 5 ms restoration time using intelligence in the optical domain.

Professor Saini’s research interests include : optoelectronics components for datacom and telecom, high speed optical networks, tunable mid-IR lasers, nanophotonics chem-bio sensors, and microwave photonics. He hold 5 US patents and has 5 more in various stages of application, of which 3 have already been commercialized.

• Monolithic Integration of photonics devices
• Optoelectronics components for datacom and telecom
• High speed optical networks
• Tunable mid-IR lasers
• Nanophotonics Chem-Bio Sensors
• Microwave photonics
• Antennas
• Microwaves & Photonics
• Water
• Nanotechnology

• 2001, Doctorate, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
• 1996, Bachelor of Technology, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

• ECE 106 - Electricity and Magnetism
  • Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
• ECE 375 - Electromagnetic Fields and Waves
  • Taught in 2020, 2021
• ECE 672 - Optoelectronic Devices
  • Taught in 2023

• Walia, Jaspreet and Boulanger, Jonathan and Dhindsa, Navneet and LaPierre, Ray and Tang, Xiaowu Shirley and Saini, Simarjeet S, Resonant photo-thermal modification of vertical gallium arsenide nanowires studied using Raman spectroscopy, Nanotechnology, 27(24), 2016
• Dhindsa, Navneet and Saini, Simarjeet S, Comparison of ordered and disordered silicon nanowire arrays: experimental evidence of photonic crystal modes, Optics letters, 41(9), 2016, 2045 - 2048
• Khodadad, Iman and Dhindsa, Navneet and Saini, Simarjeet S, Refractometric Sensing Using High-Order Diffraction Spots From Ordered Vertical Silicon Nanowire Arrays, IEEE Photonics Journal, 8(2), 2016, 1 - 10
• Dhindsa, Navneet and Walia, Jaspreet and Pathirane, Minoli and Khodadad, Iman and Wong, William S and Saini, Simarjeet Singh, Adjustable optical response of amorphous silicon nanowires integrated with thin films, Nanotechnology, 27(14), 2016
• Dhindsa, Navneet and Saini, Simarjeet Singh, Localized absorption in aluminum mask in visible spectrum due to longitudinal modes in vertical silicon nanowire arrays, Journal of Applied Physics, 117(22), 2015

• Currently considering applications from graduate students. A completed online application is required for admission; start the application process now.