axel scherer is the bernard neches professor of electrical engineering physics and applied physics at the california institute of technology he is also a distinguished visiting professor at thayer school of engineering at dartmouth college he is known for fabricating the worlds first semiconducting verticalcavity surfaceemitting laser vcsel at bell laboratories in 2006 dr scherer was named the director of the kavli nanoscience institute he graduated from new mexico institute of mining and technology in 1985 at caltech he teaches a very popular freshman lab course on semiconductor device fabrication applied physics 9ab he wrote the textbook for the course nanofabcaltecheduhis research focuses on the design and microfabrication of optical magnetic and fluidic devices in the 1980s axel scherer pioneered the development of the first monolithic vertical cavity lasers vcsels that are now widely used in data communications systems more recently professor scherers group developed electromagnetic design tools and fabrication techniques for the definition of lithographically integrated optical devices this led to pioneering work in photonic bandgap lasers silicon photonic circuits as well as tunable microfluidic dye lasers and resulted in new classes of integrated optics the first demonstration of strong coupling between single quantum dots and optical nanocavities recently emerged from a collaboration between axel scherer and hyatt gibbs collaborations with larry dalton university of washington resulted in some of the worlds smallest and fastest light modulators professor scherer also fabricated some of the first surface plasmon enhanced high brightness light emitting diodes his group miniaturized fluidic systems and demonstrated the first multilayer replication molded fluidic chips with thousands of valves creating microfluidic laboratories and single cell analysis systems axel scherer has cofounded several companies in the area of silicon photonics and biomedical diagnostics and leads a productive group focused on the miniaturization and integration of fluidic optical electronic and magnetic devices for applications in biotechnologyprofessor scherer has coauthored over 300 publications and holds over 50 patents on the area of microfabrication and design of deviceshe is also cofounder and an advisor to luxtera a california manufacturer of photonics deviceshe is also cofounder and an advisor to helixis a california manufacturer of molecular diagnostic devices