Nominators must complete a nominee submission by April 5th each year with the following:
Statement of a specific technical accomplishment or contribution(s) that qualify Nominee for Award, including the impact of the work, as well as other related accomplishments; publications, patents, etc. that demonstrate the most significant impact. (Maximum of three pages)
Proposed Award Citation: (Word Count: 20)
Nominee’s curriculum vita (Maximum of three pages)
Endorsements: Three letters of endorsement are required. You may enter the endorsers name and email to send an automatically generated email request, or if you have received the endorsement, you can upload directly to the system. (One page limit)
Presented to: An individual or team, up to three in number
Scope: To recognize outstanding achievements in Opto-Electronic device technology.
Prize: A Bronze Medallion, A Certificate and Honorarium
Honorarium Basis for judging: In the evaluation process, the following criteria are considered: The device technology cited is to have had a significant impact on their applications in major practical systems. The intent is to recognize key contributors to the field for developments of critical components, which lead to the development of systems enabling major new services or capabilities. These achievements should have been accomplished in a prior time frame sufficient to permit evaluation of their lasting impact. The work cited could have appeared in the form of publications, patents, products, or simply general recognition by the professional community that the individual cited is the agreed upon originator of the advance upon which the award decision is based.
We are proud to recognize and celebrate honorees of the IEEE Photonics Society William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award.
For pioneering contributions to multi-dimensional nanophotonic breakthroughs including orbital angular momentum division for ultrahigh-capacity optical data storage and holographic technology.
Professor Min Gu is the Executive Chancellor of the University Council and Distinguished Professor of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. He was Distinguished Professor and Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor at RMIT University, and a Laureate Fellow of the Australian Research Council, Pro ViceChancellor, and a University Distinguished Professor at Swinburne University of Technology.
He is an author of four standard reference books, a translated book and an edited book, and has over 600 publications in nano/biophotonics. He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering as well as Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is also an elected fellow of the AIP, the OSA, the SPIE, the InstP, the IEEE and the COS. He was President of the International Society of Optics within Life Sciences, Vice President of the Board of the International Commission for Optics (ICO) (Chair of the ICO Prize Committee) and a Director of the Board of the Optical Society of America (Chair of the International Council). He was awarded the Einstein Professorship, the W. H. (Beattie) Steel Medal, the Ian Wark Medal, the Boas Medal and the Victoria Prize for Science and Innovation. Professor Gu is a winner of the 2019 Dennis Gabor Award of SPIE, the 2022 Emmett Norman Leith Medal of OPTICA, the 2023 Shanghai Magnolia Silver Award and the 2025 William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award of the IEEE.
| Year | Award Winner | Citation |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Andrea Alu | For seminal contributions to the field of photonic metamaterials and their applications. |
| 2023 | Shinji Matsuo | For contributions to ultra-high speed, low power consumption membrane lasers and their heterogeneous integration. |
| 2022 | John Ballato | For pioneering contributions to the science, engineering, and application of optoelectronic fibers. |
| 2021 | Paras N. Prasad | For pioneering contributions in multiphoton processes in molecular materials and developing technologies that advance biophotonics for multiphoton imaging and therapy. |
| 2020 | Peter J. Delfyett, Jr. | For pioneering contributions to semiconductor diode based ultrafast laser science and technology. |
| 2019 | Bahram Javidi | For transformative innovations on automated disease identification using field portable optical-imaging based bio-photonics sensors. |
| 2018 | Roland Ryf | For contributions to the understanding and development of Space-Division Multiplexing in optical fibers. |
| 2017 | Nader Engheta | For development of, and pioneering contributions to extreme-parameter metamaterials in optics and photonics. |
| 2016 | Ming C. Wu | For pioneering contributions in micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS). |
| 2015 | Vladimir Shalaev | For seminal contributions both to the theoretical framework and to the ground-breaking experimental realization of optical metamaterials. |
| 2014 | Gadi Eisenstein | For fundamental contributions to the dynamical properties of semiconductor lasers and amplifiers. |
| 2013 | Curtis R. Menyuk | For seminal advances in the fundamental understanding and mitigation of polarization effects in high-performance optical fiber communication systems. |
| 2012 | Qing Hu | For pioneering contribution in the development of high-temperature, high-power, and broadly tunable THz QCLs, and applications in imaging and sensing. |
| 2011 | Xi-Cheng Zhang | For exceptional contribution of terahertz (THz) air photonics, especially free-space coherent detection of ultra-broadband THz waves. |
| 2010 | Dieter Bimberg | For demonstration of quantum dot lasers and pioneering contributions to semiconductor nanophotonics. |
| 2009 | Christopher Doerr | For pioneering research on highly functional integrated optical circuits based on arrayed waveguide grating routers and their implementation in advanced optical networks. |
| 2008 | Fumio Koyama | For contributions to vertical cavity surface emitting semiconductor lasers and dynamic single-mode semiconductor laser. |
| 2007 | Shun-Lien Chuang | For contributions to the development of the fundamental theories of strained quantum-well lasers and the physics of optoelectronics devices. |
| 2006 | William H. Steier Larry R. Dalton Harold Fetterman | For seminal contributions to the advancement of polymer photonic devices and materials. |
| 2005 | Emmanuel Desurvire | For pioneering contributions to the physical and theoretical understanding of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and their early device development. |
| 2004 | Yasuhiko Arakawa | For pioneering contributions to quantum confinement effects in semiconductor lasers and the development of quantum dot lasers. |
| 2003 | Connie Chang-Hasnain | For pioneering contributions to vertical cavity surface emitting lasers and VCSEL arrays for wavelength-division-multiplexing applications. |
| 2002 | James Fujimoto | For pioneering contributions to optical coherence tomography. |
| 2001 | Joe C. Campbell Stephen R. Forrest | For contributions to the development of high-speed, low-noise long-wavelength avalanche and p-i-n photodiodes. |
| 2000 | James J. Coleman | For pioneering research in high reliability strained layer semiconductor lasers. |
| 1999 | Jonathan Heritage Andrew Weiner | For pioneering contributions to femtosecond optical pulse shaping technology and its applications. |
| 1998 | Federico Capasso Jerome Faist | For the design, demonstration, and pioneering development of the quantum cascade laser which is revolutionizing the field of mid-infrared semiconductor lasers. |
| 1997 | Peter F. Moulton | For the invention of the titanium sapphire tunable infrared laser which opened a new era of solid state ultrafast lasers. |
| 1996 | John E. Bowers Kam Y. Lau | For significant contributions to the understanding and design of high speed semiconductor lasers. |
| 1995 | Stuart Searles Charles Brau George Hart James Ewing | For the demonstration and development of excimer lasers. |
| 1994 | Martin A. Pollack Robert E. Nahory | For pioneering work in III-V compound semiconductor materials and optoelectronic integrated circuits. |
| 1993 | Eli Yablonovitch | For contributions to optoelectronics including the physics of strained layer lasers and photonic applications of low dimensional structures. |
| 1992 | Kenichi Iga | For pioneering research in vertical-cavity surface-emitting injection lasers. |
| 1991 | Thomas L. Koch Uziel Koren | For pioneering and innovative contributions to photonic integrated circuits. |