Dr. Farhan Rana

By Kazi Zulkader Siddiqui, 671/Latif

Farhan Rana, kit no. 83122/Ayub House joined Cadet College Petaro in 1983 in 8th class and left the college in 1988 after completing his Intermediate.

He was born on 3 March 1971. The family is now settled in USA.

Farhan was the intellectual of his class. All his teachers recognized his great talents and he excelled in academics. He stood first in the entire Hyderabad Board during the Intermediate examinations and received the Gold Medal for this. The college rewarded him by giving him the Stick of Honour.

He was also the Editor-in-Chief of The Cadet Magazine in his last year at Petaro.

After leaving Petaro, Farhan got admission to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. He did his Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2003 from MIT.

Farhan moved to Cornell University as Assistant Professor soon after completing his Ph.D. in 2003. At present he is an Associate Professor in the same university.

His publications and research are in the fields of semiconductor optoelectronic devices, ultrafast optical switches and modulators, ultrafast semiconductor lasers, photonic nanotechnologies, devices based on intersubband optical transitions, and semiconductor quantum optics.

Farhan is the Principal Investigator of the Semiconductor Optoelectronics Group at Cornell. His group conducts research in diverse areas related to semiconductor optoelectronic devices, terahertz devices, optical and terahertz ultrafast spectroscopy, and the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor nanostructures.

The underlying themes behind most of his research is the engineering of the properties of electrons and photons in semiconductor micro and nano structures to realize novel devices, study new science at small scales in both space (micro- and nano-sized devices) and time (ultrafast devices), and use novel physics to solve engineering problems and tackle scientific challenges in the development of new technologies.

He has published over 85 articles in reputable journals in the field of optoelectronics.

He has received numerous awards for his work including the following:

• Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Investigator Award  (2008).

• Appointed adjunct professor at LUMS-SSE, Pakistan (2007).  

• Cornell University's Michael A. Tien Excellence in Teaching Award (2006).

• ILX Lightwave Faculty Award (2005). 

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty  Career Award (2004).

• MOST DOWNLOADED PAPER TITLE in 2008 for “Graphene Terahertz Plasmon Oscillators,” F. Rana, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, vol. 7, 91 (2008). (most downloaded papers)

• MRS BEST PAPER (RIBBON) AWARD for “All-Optical Switches Based on Intersubband Transitions in GaN/AlGaN Multiple Quantum Wells for Tbit/sec Operation,” J. Dawlaty, F. Rana, W. Schaff, Presented at the MRS Annual Meeting, Boston, MA (2004).