Senior Lecturer in photonics 

PhD Electrical Engineering, University of California, San Diego 

Maziar Nezhad received his PhD from the University of California San Diego in Electrical Engineering (2007, Photonics), where he investigated the photonic properties of metallo-dielectric structures, including pioneering work on the mitigation of losses in plasmonic devices using gain compensation. 

After graduation, he continued research in this area at UCSD's Qualcomm Institute (formerly CalIT), which culminated in demonstrating the first 3D subwavelength nanolaser operating at room temperature. In parallel he worked on optical interconnects for silicon photonic systems, resulting in a novel etch-free process for fabricating extremely low-loss optical waveguides in silicon. 

From 2011-2013 he was a visiting research scientist in the Integrated Photonics Laboratory at RWTH Aachen where he continued work on silicon-based interconnects, resonators and devices. 

His current research activities include nanophotonics, optomechanics, plasmonics, group IV photonics, nanofabrication and the application of photonics in other disciplines. 

Teaching areas: engineering mathematics