Eli Yablonovitch

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Eli Yablonovitch
Yablonovitch in 2024
Born	(1946-12-15) 15 December 1946 (age 77) Puch bei Hallein, Austria
Alma mater	McGill University Harvard University
Known for	Photonic crystals Solar cells
Awards	Benjamin Franklin Medal Frederic Ives Medal IEEE Edison Medal Isaac Newton Medal Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize Rank Prize Harvey Prize IEEE Photonics Award Mountbatten Medal R. W. Wood Prize Adolph Lomb Medal
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, Electrical Engineering
Institutions	McGill University Harvard University Bell Telephone Laboratories Exxon Bell Communications Research University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Nicolaas Bloembergen

Eli Yablonovitch (born 15 December 1946) is an American physicist and engineer who, along with Sajeev John, founded the field of photonic crystals in 1987.^[1] He and his team were the first to create a 3-dimensional structure that exhibited a full photonic bandgap, which has been named Yablonovite. In addition to pioneering photonic crystals, he was the first to recognize that a strained quantum-well laser has a significantly reduced threshold current compared to its unstrained counterpart. This is now employed in the majority of semiconductor lasers fabricated throughout the world. His seminal paper^[2] reporting inhibited spontaneous emission in photonic crystals is among the most highly cited papers in physics and engineering.