Steven P. DenBaars

Steven P. DenBaars is a Professor of Materials and Co-Director of the Solid-State Lighting Center at UCSB. Professor DenBaars joined UCSB in 1991 and currently holds the Mitsubishi Chemical Chair in Solid State Lighting and Displays. He is also a current Board member of Aeluma, a privately held start-up engaged in the manufacture high performance InGaAs sensors. Professor Denbaars was formerly a co-founder and board member of a privately held GaN start-up companies, Soraa Laser Diode Inc. Professor DenBaars has been in the compound semiconductor business for over 30 years starting with his prior work at Hewlett-Packard Optoelectronics division in 1988 and involvement in more than two LED companies and one laser diode company. Professor DenBaars’ specific research interests include growth of wide-band gap semiconductors (GaN based), and their application to Blue LEDs and lasers and energy efficient solid-state lighting. This research has led to over 1,140 scientific publications and over 190 U.S. patents on electronic materials and devices. He has been awarded an NSF Young Investigator award, Young Scientist Award of the ISCS, IEEE Aron Kressel Award, and he is an IEEE Fellow and a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) HKUST. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2012), and elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2014).