WIN Seminar with Dr. Douglas Dykaar

Thursday, September 25, 2025 11:30 am - 12:30 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) is pleased to present Dr. Douglas Dykaar, the founder of DifTek Lasers Inc. and a visiting scientist in Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

When: September 25 @ 11:30 a.m.
Where: QNC 1501 

About the seminar

Title: Lasers for Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence hardware is placing extraordinary demands on interconnect bandwidth. This talk explores the current implementations of optical switches and proposes a new laser geometry using Quantum Well nanorods capable of supporting Petabytes per second.

Doug Dykaar

Biography

Dr. Doug Dykaar is the founder of DifTek Lasers, Inc. He received the PhD in ElectricalEngineering from the University of Rochester working at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics under Gerard Mourou (Nobel Prize in Physics 2018). He was a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs Murray Hill, Research manager at DALSA, and Research Scientist at Thalmic/North. Doug also taught at Conestoga College in their 4-year Bachelor of Engineering Program. At last count, he had over 100 patent applications and60 publications. His research interests span lasers to superconductivity to materials science to composite electronics.

Doors will open 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time, with simple refreshments available. We encourage attendees to arrive early to secure their seats.