IEEE Awards Booklet - 2018 - 12

2018 ieee medals

IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies
Sponsored by Toyota Motor Corporation

Jerome Faist and Frank K. Tittel

For pioneering contributions to the quantum cascade laser and
optical chemical sensors for environmental sensing

he numerous direct and indirect collaborations between Jerome Faist and Frank K.Tittel have made quantum cascade
laser (QCL) spectroscopy an established, more powerful,
and versatile chemical detection tool for trace chemical sensing in
environmental, medical, and security applications. Faist developed
the QCL in 1994, providing a fundamentally new semiconductor
laser that could operate in the mid-infrared and terahertz wavelength range. He then created the first single-mode laser suitable for
spectroscopy in 1997. Faist has continuously advanced QCLs with
innovations expanding the wavelength range, improving eﬃciency,
developing theoretical models underpinning their properties, and
expanding their applicability by improving room-temperature operation. Tittel had already been a leading researcher in several fields
related to vibrational spectroscopy, especially in the development of
new light sources and spectroscopy systems.With Faist's invention of
the QCL, Tittel was eager to the adapt the technology to environmental monitoring and medical diagnostics. In 2004, Faist supplied
Tittel with one of the first QCLs cooled only by a thermoelectric
cooler operating in the 9-µm region, which Tittel used to observe
the absorptions of several species. Then Faist developed a broadly

tunable QCL with an antireflection coating enabling external cavity tuning, which Tittel incorporated into a broad scanning source
for his spectroscopic applications. One of the most important techniques developed in Tittel's lab was quartz-enhanced photoacoustic
spectroscopy (QEPAS). In this method, absorption of a modulated
laser beam by a tiny sample of gas excites the resonance of a quartz
tuning fork. By combining QEPAS with a QCL, Tittel produced
a very compact and portable trace gas monitor with high sensitivity and stability that was readily deployable to the field. QCLbased sensors developed by Tittel have been shown to detect trace
amounts of methane and nitrous oxide at landfills. Overall, Faist and
Tittel have provided the global climate research community with
tools to solve critical problems of unprecedented complexity.
An IEEE Member, Optical Society of America Fellow, and recipient of the 1994 American Association for the Advancement
of Science's Newcomb Cleveland Prize, Faist is a professor with
the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
An IEEE Fellow and Optical Society of America Fellow, Tittel is the J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer
Engineering at Rice University, Houston, TX, USA.

Scope: For outstanding accomplishments in the application of technology in the fields of interest of IEEE that improve the environment
and/or public safety.
12 | 2018 IEEE awards bookLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2018