Wise was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories before coming to Cornell. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1988, and was named an NSF Presidential Young Investigator in 1989. He has received several awards for excellence and innovation in teaching.  In 2007 he was appointed as director of the School of Applied and Engineering Physics.

Wise Group Website

Research Interests

Our main research projects are listed below. At any given time we will also typically have some smaller specific projects.

Properties of semiconductor nanocrystals (“quantum dots”) 
This work ranges from basic physics to applicatios.  For example, we determine the electron states and vibrational modes of semiconductor nanostructures.  Example applications include efficient infrared light emitters and photovoltaic devices for solar energy conversion.

Studies of optical spatiotemporal solitons
Optical solitons are packets of localized electromagnetic radiation that propagate without spreading out spatially despite diffraction nor temporally despite group-velocity dispersion.  We are working to generate fully-confined spatiotemporal solitons (sometimes referred to as "light bullets"), and we are also investigating the potential future uses of light bullets in information processing.

Development of femtosecond-pulse lasers and amplifiers
We are working to develop sources of ultrashort optical pulses that could be used in applications outside of basic research laboratories. Our activities range from theoretical studies of new mechanisms for shaping pulses in lasers to laser engineering and commercial development. Currently we are focused on fiber lasers and amplifiers.

Current Research Projects  

• Femtosecond Techniques for Imaging Deep in Tissue (National Institutes of Health)
• High-Energy Femtosecond Fiber Lasers (National Science Foundation)
• Studies of Optical Spatiotemporal Solitons (National Science Foundation)
• Strong Quantum Confinement of Electrons in Lead-Salt Nanocrystals (National Science Foundation through the Center for Nanoscale Systems)

Selected Publications

Semiconductor nanocrystals

• Kang, I., and F. W. Wise. 1997. Electronic structure and optical properties of PbS and PbSe quantum dots. Journal of the Optical Society of America B 14:163246 (1997)
• Olkhovets, A., R.-C. Hsu, A. Lipovskii, and F. W. Wise.  1998. Size-dependent temperature variation of the energy gap in a semiconductor quantum dot.  Physical Review Letters 81: 3539-42.
• Wise, F. W.  2000.  Lead-salt quantum dots: the limit of strong quantum confinement.  Accounts of Chemical Research 33:  773-780.
• Larson, D., W. Zipfel, R. Williams, M. Bruchez, S. Clark, F. W. Wise, and W. W. Webb. 2003. Water-soluble quantum dots for multiphoton fluorescence imaging in vivo. Science 300: 1434-36.
• Harbold, J.M., H. Du, T.D. Krauss, K.-S. Cho, C. B. Murray, and F.W. Wise.  2005. Time-resolved intraband relaxation of strongly-confined electrons and holes in colloidal PbSe nanocrystals. Physical Review B 72: 195312.
• Bartnik, A., A. Kigel, E. Lifshitz, and F. W. Wise. 2007. Electronic structure of PbSe/PbS core-shell quantum dots. Physical Review B 75: 245424
• B.-R. Hyun et al. 2008. Electron injection from colloidal PbS quantum dots into titanium dioxide nanoparticles. ACS Nano 2, 2206.
• J. J. Choi et al. 2009.  PbSe nanocrystal excitonic solar cells.  Nano Letters online.
  

Ultrafast lasers and optics

• Proctor, B., and F. W. Wise. 1993. Generation of 13-fs pulses from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with reduced third-order dispersion. Applied Physics Letters 62:47072.
• Liu, X., L. Qian, and F. W. Wise.  1999.  Generation of optical spatiotemporal solitons.  Physical Review Letters  82: 4631-34.
• Ilday, F. O., J. Buckley, F. W. Wise, and W. G. Clark. 2004. Self-similar evolution of parabolic pulses in a laser. Physical Review Letters 92: 213902.
• Chong, A., J. Buckley, W. Renninger, and F. Wise. 2006. All-normal-dispersion femtosecond fiber laser. Optics Express 14: 10095.
• Moses J. and F. W. Wise. 2006. Controllable self-steepening of ultrashort optical pulses in quadratic nonlinear media. Physical Review Letters 97: 073903.
• Zhou, S., D. Ouzounov and F.  Wise. 2007. Divided-pulse amplification of ultrashort pulses. Optics Letters 32: 871.
• Renninger, W., A. Chong, and F. W. Wise. 2008. Dissipative solitons in normal-dispersion fiber lasers. Physical Review A 77: 023814.