optics

Professor Wolfgang Heidrich elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and named a 2025 Optica Fellow

5 min read ·
KAUST Professor Wolfgang Heidrich has been named a Fellow of both the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and Optica, recognizing his pioneering contributions to computational imaging, display systems and AI-driven optical technologies.

Prof. Hakan Bagci Elevated to Senior Member of IEEE

1 min read ·
Prof. Hakan Bagci has been elevated to the rank of Senior Member of IEEE. This is considered an important honor since only 8% of nearly 400,000 IEEE members are Senior Members because of their superior professional achievements.

Humboldt Research Award for Prof. Heidrich

1 min read ·
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has awarded a Humboldt Research Award to Prof. Wolfgang Heidrich.

Optical chips harness the power of rogue waves

1 min read ·
A microchip designed to generate and control rogue waves of light on the nano-scale has many potential applications.An optical chip to create and harness the power of nanoscale rogue waves of light could ultimately lead to better prediction systems for weather events and natural disasters by improving researchers’ understanding of the mechanisms that underpin chaotic wave events. Natural catastrophic events are inherently unpredictable, stemming from high-energy, chaotic systems that are difficult to understand or emulate. Andrea Fratalocchi, and his team from KAUST, in collaboration with

The Orange Laser

1 min read ·
In the last issue of Electronics Letters of 9th July 2015 Vol.51 No.14 a team of researchers coordinated by Prof. Boon Ooi, director the Photonics Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST), presented a phosphide-based laser structure that can operate in the orange wavelengths at room temperature.

Flat lenses with a twist!

1 min read ·
Overlaying two film layers patterned with a nanoscale array can manipulate the propagation of light to create a powerful ultrathin lens.

Professor Bagci Elevated to Senior Membership Status of the International Union of Radio Science

1 min read ·
Hakan Bagci, KAUST Associate Professor of electrical engineering, was recently elevated to Senior Membership of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) for his research achievements in the field of computational electromagnetics, and his long-standing involvement in the URSI, which includes serving on several conference technical program committees and editorial boards of journals.

Chun Hong Kang receives SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

1 min read ·
Chun Hong Kang, a Ph.D. student in the KAUST Photonics Laboratory, has been awarded a 2021 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE for his “potential contributions to the field of optics and photonics.”

Outstanding KAUST research acknowledged by leading photonics journal

1 min read ·
KAUST professors Boon Ooi and Osman Bakr and their respective research groups have recently had their collaborative research recognized by one of the major journals for optics and photonics, Light: Science & Applications (LSA). The teams’ paper— titled "High-speed color-converting photodetector with all-inorganic CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals for ultraviolet light communication—" was awarded as an “Outstanding Paper of Light: Science & Applications in 2020.”

Professor Ooi appointed Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters

1 min read ·
KAUST Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Boon S. Ooi has been appointed Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters beginning January 1, 2022.

Wolfgang Heidrich

Professor, Computer Science
Professor Heidrich is apinoeer in the development of novel sensing and display technologies by combining computer graphics, machine vision, imaging, inverse methods, optics and perception.

Qilin Sun

Qilin Sun is a Ph. D. candidate in the Computational Imaging Group (VCCIMAGING) under the supervision of Professor Wolfgang Heidrich at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Qilin Sun obtained his bachelor degree in Optical Information Science and Technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China in 2015. After that, he joined KAUST and received his master degree in Electrical Engineering in 2017.Qilin is a CEO&Founder at Point Spread Technology, China. Research Interest Qilin is interested in Computational

Mohammed Abdul Majid

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Photonics Laboratory
Mohammed Abdul Majid was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Photonics Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where he worked on applying III/V semiconductor quantum dot/quantum well devices to applications such as biomedical imaging, optical communications to solid-state lighting. Mohammed received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 2002. In 2011, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Sheffield in the U.K. From 2002-2008

Mohamed D. Farhat

Research Scientist, Waves in Complex Media
Mohamed Farhat is currently a Research Scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.

Hakan Bagci

Professor Bagci is a highly accomplished researcher in the field of computational electromagnetics (CEM). His research focuses on the theoretical and applied aspects of CEM.

Hadi Amata

Hadi Amata is a Research Scientist in the Computational Imaging Group (VCCIMAGING) working with Professor Wolfgang Heidrich at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Dr. Amata received his master degree in Electronics/Microelectronics from Provence University in France in 2008. He obtained a doctoral in Electrical Engineering “Optics and Photonics” from Jean Monnet University of Saint Etienne in France in 2012. He started his career life as a teaching assistant at Saint-Étienne Institute of Technology (IUT) in 2010. He was also a teaching

Damián San Román Alerigi

Damian San Roman obtained his Master's and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Professor Boon Ooi at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He joined KAUST in 2010 as a founding class member within the Master’s program in Photonics. He studied dynamic optical transformations for Ph.D. Damian’s Ph.D. work focused on the understanding and modeling of how different physical phenomena affect the permittivity and permeability tensors of materials and material-structures. How such effects (Aharonov-Bohm, Kerr, Thermal Cassimir, plasmonics, and other

Boon Ooi

Professor Ooi is a pioneer in optoelectronics and photonic integrated circuits development, particularly for optical communications and sensor applications. His work has led to the successful commercialization of semiconductor lasers, broadband light sources, and optical sensors

Aigars Ekers

Short bio Dr. Ekers obtained his MS and PhD in physics from the University of Latvia in 1994 and 1999, respectively. During the PhD studies, he spent periods of time performing experiments at Lund University (Sweden), Warsaw University (Poland), and Kaiserslautern University (Germany), the latter as a DAAD research scholarship holder. After a successful proposal to EU Framework Programme, he returned to Kaiserslautern University as a Marie Curie Fellowship holder (1999-2002). After the Fellowship, he continued in Kaiserslautern as a research associate. In 2005, he moved to Riga to assume a