ECE FACULTY

Christopher Davis

Title: Minta Martin Professor of Engineering
Areas/Affiliations: ECE, Maryland Optics Group
E-mail: davis@umd.edu
Phone: (301)405-3637
Office: Kim Building 2124
Recent News

Research Areas: Free space optical and directional RF communication systems, atmospheric turbulence, advanced surveillance systems, plasmonics, chemical and biological sensors, interferometry, optical systems, bioelectromagnetics, RF dosimetry

Website: http://www.ece.umd.edu/~davis

Biography:

Christopher C. Davis is Minta Martin Professor of Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received the B.A. degree (with Honors) in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1965, the M.A. degree from the University of Cambridge in 1970, and the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Manchester in 1970. From 1973-1975 he was an Instructor/Research Associate at Cornell University, and from 1982-83 was a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has been a recipient of the following Honors and Awards:  University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, 1989-90; Fellow of the Institute of Physics, 1989; AT&T/ASEE Award for Excellence in Engineering Education,1990; Fellow of the IEEE, 1993; Invention of the Year Award in Information Technology, University of Maryland, 2000; Poole and Kent Teaching Award for Senior Faculty, 2012.

Professor Davis is the author of the widely used text “Lasers and Electro-Optics,” published by Cambridge University Press, and co-author with Jack Moore and Mike Coplan of the best selling text “Building Scientific Apparatus,” recently published in its 4th edition by Cambridge University Press. He is also author or co-author of 14 chapters in books, 215 refereed journal articles and over 295 conference papers, and is the holder of twelve awarded and several pending patents. He is Conference co-Chair of the SPIE Free Space Laser Communications Conference, and is a frequent invited lecturer both nationally and internationally. He has served as a scientific consultant to several US Government agencies and industry. He is a member of the IEEE Committee SCC-34 SC2, which deals with RF exposure from wireless devices.

Research Interests:

Currently active research includes optical and RF directional wireless, real-time advanced surveillance systems with “event” detection, the optical properties of nanostructures where surface plasmons can be excited, laser interferometry, dielectrometry, fiber sensors and biosensors, magnetooptics, optical trace detection, atmospheric turbulence, optical communication systems and devices, and studies of the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation.  Latest papers: (1) R. Fainchtein, D.M. Brown, K.M. Siegrist, A.H. Monica, E. Hwang, S. D. Milner, and C.C. Davis, “Time-Dependent Near-Blackbody Thermal Emission from Pulsed Laser-Irradiated Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube Arrays," Physical Review B 85, 125432-1 125432-12. 2012. (2) H. Zhang, J. Llorca, C.C. Davis, and S.D. Milner.  Nature-Inspired Self-Organization, Control, and Optimization in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks.  IEEE Trans. Mob. Comp. 11, 1207-1222, 2012. His past research has covered gas lasers, photon counting, chemical lasers, molecular relaxation processes, diode-pumped solid-state lasers, laser noise and instabilities, injection locking of broad area laser diodes, nonlinear imaging of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic materials, and near-field scanning optical microscopy.

Teaching:

Professor Davis teaches regularly at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He teaches basic circuit theory, electromagnetics, optical system design, lasers, quantum mechanics, and quantum electronics. He has also taught on a number of occasions a general interest course for Honors freshmen entitled “The Light Fantastic: Light, Optics, and Lasers.”

Spotlight on Research: Broadband Directional Wireless Communication Networks

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