Professor Miloš Popović Elected NAI Fellow
by Lea Rivel
Professor Miloš Popović has been elected to the rank of Fellow by the National Academy of Inventors. The selection of NAI Fellows is based on their demonstration of a “highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.” “Prolific” is certainly an accurate description of Popović’s ongoing, pioneering work on photonic integrated circuits.
For over 15 years, Popović’s research has focused on blending electronics and photonics on a chip. In collaboration with researchers from UC Berkeley and MIT, his team has developed leading foundry platforms for the design of silicon photonic circuits: microchips that manipulate the properties of silicon to transmit, route and detect light, integrating both optical and electronic functions onto a single chip that is capable of operating as a self-contained system. In 2015, his groundbreaking research led to an academic demonstration of the first microprocessor to communicate with other chips using light; a milestone in the field of silicon photonics, which has since been cited over 1,250 times by other researchers.
That same year, Popovic co-founded Ayar Labs, a Silicon Valley startup, with his former graduate student Mark Wade, now CEO of the company, as well as long-time collaborators from Berkeley and MIT. Ayar Labs is developing integrated photonic components for immensely powerful high-performance optical data processing, bridging the gap between theory and practical realization. The increased speed and processing capacity of this technology will be crucial to many emerging applications like 5G/6G wireless and vehicle radar.
The new class of NAI Fellows, Professor Popović among them, will be honored at the NAI Fellows Induction Ceremony in June 2024, in which a leading official from the United States Patent and Trademark Office will provide a keynote address.
According to their mission statement, the National Academy of Inventors was founded to “recognize and encourage inventors with U.S. patents, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and to create wider public understanding of how its members’ inventions benefit society.” Election to the NAI as a Fellow is the highest professional distinction presented solely to academic inventors. Currently, their Fellows collectively hold more than 58,000 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 13,000 licensed technologies, 3,200 companies, and created more than 1 million jobs.
Professor Milos Popović joined the Boston University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2016. His research continues to develop cutting-edge photonic integrated circuit technologies for new applications in quantum communication and computing, cryogenic signal processing, 5G/6G wireless, and lidar imaging. Popović won Supervisor of the Year awards from both BU and the Northeast Association of Student Employment Administrators (NEASEA) in 2022, and has been noted for his excellence in mentoring students. He has been the recipient of a 2021 IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation Award, a 2017 BU Innovation Career Development Professorship, and a 2012 election as Fellow of the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Professor Popović received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007, and has 41 issued and 15 pending patents.