Paul F. McManamon (born July 1, 1946) is an American scientist who is best known for his work in optics and photonics, as well as sensors, countermeasures, and directed energy.
Paul F. McManamon (born July 1, 1946) is an American scientist who is best known for his work in optics and photonics, as well as sensors, countermeasures, and directed energy.
McManamon was born in East Cleveland, Ohio. He attended St Ignatius high school, where he has been recognized as a distinguished graduate. [1] He received his BS in physics from John Carroll University. He received his MS and PhD in physics from the Ohio State University.
McManamon spent his government career at Wright-Patterson AFB. He started in electronic warfare and then moved into optical systems while he worked on his PhD. He moved from the Aeronautical Systems Division to the Air Force labs in 1979. Initially, he was in charge of the thermal imaging group of about 14 people in the Avionics lab. In 1995, he became the acting chief scientist for avionics, a position he held for 32 months. In 2001, he became senior scientist for electro-optical sensors and, in 2005, he became chief scientist for sensors, as part of the Air Force Research Laboratory. [2]
McManamon is widely recognized as the Father of the Optical Phased Array technology. Starting from 1987, he developed the technologies required to steer laser beams with no moving parts. He has both guided this effort and made significant individual technical contributions. He led in-house work at the Air Force research Laboratory, AFRL, authoring the IEEE WRG Baker award-winning paper in on this subject. [3]
He initiated the Phased Arrays approach to active electro-optical systems for laser sensing and laser weapons, and published the first papers in this area in the late 1990s. The Phased Array approach to active EO systems for laser sensing and laser weapons now dominates the beam control sessions at Directed Energy Professional society (DEPs) meetings. McManamon emphasized performance based sensing for combined sensor and processing development as chief scientist, AFRL Sensors to define an information goal, and develop the required sensors and processing to achieve that goal.
In the early 1990s, he initiated and guided 2D LADAR Lidar for long range ID. He had the vision to use the designator laser along with a near IR camera to identify objects at longer range at night than can be done with a thermal imager. [4] The 2D LADAR for long range ID that McManamon initiated, is now being deployed in the U.S. Air Force and Army. It significantly increases the object recognition range for U.S. aircraft. From the late 1980s until 2008 McManamon led the team at AFRL developing numerous LADAR technologies, including laser vibrometers, and synthetic aperture LADAR.
McManamon was an early advocate of pro-active Infrared countermeasures recommending a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program called medusa. The concept of pro-active IRCM has become prominent in the Air Force countermeasures community.
McManamon recently chaired a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Study on Active EO Sensing. The published study was called “Laser Radar Progress and Opportunities in Active Electro-Optical Sensing". [5] Laser radar is becoming a significant sensor, with multiple sensing modalities. Shortly before that McManamon was co-chair of the harnessing Light 2 National Academy of Sciences committee, which published the study, “Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for Our Nation.” [6]
This study recommended a National Photonics Initiative, NPI, because optics and photonics is such a key enabler in the U.S. economy. The White House commissioned a fast-track committee to respond to the recommendations of the Optics and Photonics study. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] The recommended NPI is proceeding with significant vigor, encompassing both Congress and the Executive Branch.
As a result of the study recommendations and subsequent photonics community activity, the U.S. Department of Defense has selected photonics as the focus of a new Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI). This institute will be the largest to date of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and will comprise a total of $200 million public and private funding. [12]
McManamon was vice chair of the NAS study called “Seeing photons”, having to do with passive electro-optical sensors.
McManamon is president and CTO of Exciting Technology LLC and works part-time with the University of Dayton as Technical Director of the Ladar and Optical Communications Institute, LOCI, in the EO department
McManamon served as an expert witness on LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology, which helps self-driving cars see and navigate, in the Uber v. Waymo lawsuit. [13] [14]
SPIE is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It organizes technical conferences, trade exhibitions, and continuing education programs for researchers and developers in the light-based fields of physics, including: optics, photonics, and imaging engineering. The society publishes peer-reviewed scientific journals, conference proceedings, monographs, tutorial texts, field guides, and reference volumes in print and online. SPIE is especially well-known for Photonics West, one of the laser and photonics industry's largest combined conferences and tradeshows which is held annually in San Francisco. SPIE also participates as partners in leading educational initiatives, and in 2020, for example, provided more than $5.8 million in support of optics education and outreach programs around the world.
Federico Capasso, a prominent applied physicist, was one of the inventors of the quantum cascade laser during his work at Bell Laboratories. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard University. He has co-authored over 450 papers, edited four volumes, and holds over 60 US patents.
Xi-Cheng Zhang is a Chinese-born American physicist, currently serving as the Parker Givens Chair of Optics at the University of Rochester, and the director of the Institute of Optics. He is also the Chairman of the Board and President of Zomega Terahertz Corporation.
The University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, considered the largest institute for optics education in the United States, is dedicated to research and education in optics with an emphasis on optical engineering. The college offers more than 90 courses in optical sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Optical Sciences and Engineering, Masters and Doctoral degree programs in Optical Sciences, as well as a dual master's degree in Optical Sciences and Business Administration. The college also offers comprehensive distance learning courses leading to a Professional Graduate Certificate or a master's degree and markets non-credit short courses on DVD to optics professionals.
Robert Louis Byer is a physicist. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1994 and of the American Physical Society in 2012.
Anthony J. DeMaria is an American researcher in lasers and their applications, particularly known for his work with picosecond laser pulses.
The IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), is a society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), focused on the scientific and engineering knowledge about the field of quantum electronics. In the hierarchy of IEEE, the Photonics Society is one of the close to 40 technical societies organized under the IEEE Technical Activities Board.
Rod C. Alferness was president of The Optical Society in 2008.
Anthony Michael Johnson is an American experimental physicist, a professor of physics, and a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is the director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), also situated on campus at UMBC. Since his election to the 2002 term as president of the Optical Society, formerly the Optical Society of America, Johnson has the distinction of being the first and only African-American president to date. Johnson's research interests include the ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured, and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems. His research has helped to better understand processes that occur in ultrafast time frames of 1 quadrillionth of a second. Ultrashort pulses of light have been used to address technical and logistical challenges in medicine, telecommunications, homeland security, and have many other applications that enhance contemporary life.
Gisele Bennett was a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Director of the GTRI Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). She also founded the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center (LandMARC) at GTRI.
Photonic Sensors is an international journal and has been available online as an Open Access publication since 2011. It is co-published quarterly by the University of Electronic Science & Technology of China (UESTC) and Springer. Photonic Sensors publishes original, peer-reviewed articles that report on new developments of interest to members of the photonics and sensor communities in all fields of photonic-sensing science and technology, including but not limited to topics on:
Shin-Tson Wu, is an American physicist and inventor of Taiwanese origin. He is currently a Pegasus professor at CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida. Wu's contributions to liquid-crystal research and the resulting patent portfolio for next-generation liquid crystal displays (LCDs), adaptive optics, laser-beam steering, biophotonics, and new photonic materials, have had a major impact on display technology worldwide.
Dr. Ilko Ilev is Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) Scientist and Chief of the Optical Therapeutics and Medical Nanophotonics Laboratory with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2014 for his contributions to the development of multifunctional optical sensing and imaging methods in biophotonics technology and medical devices. Dr. Ilev is also an elected Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS).
Manijeh Razeghi is an Iranian-American scientist in the fields of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices. She is a pioneer in modern epitaxial techniques for semiconductors such as low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), vapor phase epitaxy (VPE), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), GasMBE, and MOMBE. These techniques have enabled the development of semiconductor devices and quantum structures with higher composition consistency and reliability, leading to major advancement in InP and GaAs based quantum photonics and electronic devices, which were at the core of the late 20th century optical fiber telecommunications and early information technology.
James J. Coleman is an electrical engineer who worked at Bell Labs, Rockwell International, and the University of Illinois, Urbana. He is best known for his work on semiconductor lasers, materials and devices including strained-layer indium gallium arsenide lasers and selective area epitaxy. Coleman is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.
Alexandra Boltasseva is Ron And Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, and editor-in-chief for The Optical Society's Optical Materials Express journal. Her research focuses on plasmonic metamaterials, manmade composites of metals that use surface plasmons to achieve optical properties not seen in nature.
Peter J. Delfyett Jr is an American engineer and Pegasus Professor and Trustee Chair Professor of Optics, ECE & Physics at the University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics.
Carmen S. Menoni is an Argentine-American physicist who is the University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University. Her research considers oxide materials for interference coatings and spectrometry imaging. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Physical Society, The Optical Society and SPIE. Menoni served as the President of the IEEE Photonics Society from 2020 to 2021.
Jürgen W. Czarske is a German electrical engineer and a measurement system technician. He is the director of the TU Dresden Biomedical Computational Laser Systems competence center and a co-opted professor of physics.
Michael Theodore Eismann is an American scientist and researcher working at the Air Force Research Laboratory. He is a former editor of Optical Engineering and a member of the NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology panel. In 2023, Eismann was elevated to fellow membership of the IEEE.
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