(314) 935-5554
dlr@wustl.edu
Academy Building, Room 219A

PhD, Case Western University, 1968
MS, Case Institute of Technology, 1966
BS, University of Dayton, 1964

Daniel Rode

Senior Professor

Biography

Professor Rode has been a professor at Washington University in St. Louis since 1980. Prior to his work at WUSTL, he was the Technical Group Supervisor of the Compound Semiconductor Group at Bell Telephone Laboratories-Murray Hill. There, his group developed the World's first semiconductor lasers for use in fiber-optic communications systems. The group also developed high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for displays and high-speed transistors for use in mobile cell telephones.

Professor Rode is the Director of the Optoelectronics Research Laboratory. He also incorporated the International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (GaAs Mantech) as a not-for-profit Missouri corporation and served as a member of the Executive Committee and as Treasurer from its founding in 1986, managing the finances and investments to the million-dollar level when he retired from GaAs Mantech in 2004.

Research

Professor Rode is currently carrying out research in the areas of optoelectronics and fiber optics, a new charge-injection theory of the bipolar transistor and associated precision electronics, and the electron transport physics of large-energy-gap semiconductors. Work in optoelectronics and fiber optics applies to high-speed optical interconnects using fiber optics and polymer optical waveguides to replace slower electrical interconnects in future advanced electronic systems.

Professor Rode has also developed a number of novel semiconductor laser diodes and high-speed light-emitting diodes for use in optoelectronics applications. Work is in progress on new types of fiber-optic sensors. This research involves crystal growth, photolithography, chemical etching of semiconductor crystals, metallization, and other types of semiconductor wafer processing and microfabrication as well as optical and electrical characterization utilizing optical spectrometers, high-resolution x-ray diffraction, high-speed superconducting sampling oscilloscopes and various laser and fiber-optic measurement techniques.

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