"Optical Communications for Information Technologies" by Dr. Peter Persans, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Guest Lecture for the Science of Information Technology Filmed July 25, 2002 Video produced by the fine folk at RSVP. Quick links: Instructions Details Bio of Lecturer

Instructions

	Internet Explorer on a PC and Windows Media Player. (Apologies to the Mac users and anti-Microsoft purists, but the video is in Microsoft Producer format and won't play in other environments.)
	A reasonably fast connection to the Internet. (Dial-up should work, but the buffering is sketchy and takes a really long time.  If you are forced to use dial-up, let the video download completely before you try to play it.  This could take an hour or more.)

Click on the link below that best describes your Internet connection and supply of patience:

Details

A few features of the presentation:

	Upon clicking on one of the bandwidth choices, you will be taken to a page that, at first, gives you nothing to do.  Once the video has buffered,  you will see the word "Play" appear in the top left (where "Loading, please wait ..." had been previously).  The video is still loading, but your computer judges that you have downloaded enough to get started.  If your Internet connection is of a slower variety, you  may want to wait a while longer before clicking on Play.  The longer you wait (up until the time at which the entire presentation has loaded), the better your chances of successful and smooth viewing.
	Once you click on Play, the top left of the screen should contain the video.  Below the video is a table of contents, listed by the titles of the Power Point slides that will appear in the top right of your screen.  Clicking on any table of contents entry should take you to that point in the video, assuming that point is already loaded.  The forward and backward arrows directly below the video take you to the next or previous slide.
	If you have to stop the presentation at any point and visit other web sites, your browser will remember where you left off and start at that point the next time you launch the presentation, provided you do not close the browser.

Biography of the Guest Lecturer

Peter D. Persans is a Professor of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He earned his B. S. in Physics from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and his Ph.D. from University of Chicago.  From 1981-1986 he was a photovoltaics and materials research scientist at Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories.  He joined the faculty of Rensselaer as an Assistant Professor in 1986 and has been associated with the Center for Integrated Electronics at Rensselaer since 1986.  In 2003 he served as President of Rensselaer's Faculty Senate.  He has served as research advisor for over 60 undergraduates as well as 14 Ph.D. thesis students.  Rensselaer students selected him for the 2001 David M. Darrin Award for Counseling.

Professor Persans is the co-author of over 140 refereed technical publications.  He made early contributions to the development of hydrogenated amorphous silicon and germanium as photovoltaic and thin film transistor materials with collaborators at University of Chicago, Exxon, and General Electric.  His work on optical, electronic, and structural properties of ultrathin-film periodic multilayers of amorphous silicon with other amorphous materials has led to better understanding of amorphous semiconductors and their interfaces.  For the past 16 years, Professor Persans has led a research program to study growth, structure, stability, and optical properties of nanocrystalline (II-VI and IV) semiconductors.  Professor Persans also leads the Rensselaer effort to develop thin film optical waveguides for three-dimensional computer chip architectures.