Ben Eggleton

Eggleton obtained the bachelor's degree (with honours) in Science in 1992 and PhD degree in Physics from the University of Sydney in 1996. In 1996, he joined Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies as a Postdoctoral Member of Staff in the Optical Physics Department under the supervision of Dr Richart E. Slusher. In 1998 he transferred to the Optical Fiber Research Department as a Member of Technical Staff and was promoted to Technical Manager of the Fiber Gratings Group in 2000. He was then promoted to Research Director within the Specialty Fiber Business Division of Bell Laboratories, where he was engaged in forward-looking research supporting Lucent Technologies business in optical fiber devices.[3]

Eggleton was the founding Director of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS) at the University of Sydney and served as Director from 2009 to 2018. He was previously an ARC Laureate Fellow and an ARC Federation Fellow twice and was founding Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) from 2003 to 2017.

Eggleton's research links fundamental to applied science and spans physics and engineering. He has made pioneering contributions to nonlinear optics and all-optical signal processing with recent breakthrough achievements in the nonlinear optics of periodic media, slow-light in photonic crystals and ultrafast planar waveguide nonlinear optics.[4] His research into new classes of nonlinear waveguides has created a new paradigm for photonic chip based ultrafast optical signal processing and his group holds various world records.[5]

Eggleton's breakthroughs in the nonlinear optics of chalcogenide glasses have led to his demonstrations of new ultrafast optical devices for telecommunications applications, record low-threshold supercontinuum generation sources and on-chip parametric sources. His group reported the first demonstration of on-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering,[6] and holds the record for on-chip SBS gain. His fundamental breakthroughs include the first demonstrations of gap soliton formation in periodic media and of slow-light-enhanced nonlinear optics in photonic crystals.[7][8][9]

Eggleton is the author and coauthor of more than 480 journal publications, including articles in Nature Photonics, Nature Physics, Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters and Optica and over 200 invited presentations. His journal papers have been cited 19,000 times according to Web of Science with an h-number of 66 (87 in google scholar) and has filed over 35 patents.[10]

He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA),[11] IEEE Photonics,[12] the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE),[13] and the Australian Academy of Science (AAS).[14]

Eggleton has received numerous awards for his contributions, including, the 2011 Walter Boas Medal from the Australian Institute of Physics,[4][15] the Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science,[16] the 2008 NSW Physicist of the Year medal,[17] the 2007 Pawsey Medal from the Australian Academy of Science,[18] the 2004 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year,[19] the 2003 International Commission on Optics (ICO) Prize,[20] the 1998 Adolph Lomb Medal from OSA,[21] the Distinguished Lecturer Award from the IEEE/LEOS,[22] and the R&D100 Award.[23] In 2012, he was awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship.[24]

Eggleton was recipient of the University of Sydney Vice Chancellors Award for Outstanding Research. He was President of the Australian Optical Society from 2008 to 2010 and was Editor-in-Chief for Optics Communications from 2007 to 2015. He served on the Board of Governors for the IEEE Photonics Society from 2015 to 2017 and is the Editor-in-Chief for APL Photonics.

Eggleton, together with a team of researchers from the University of Sydney and the Australian National University, won the Australian Museum's 2020 Defence Science and Technology Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia.[25]

• Homepage at the University of Sydney