{"id":149487,"date":"2025-10-28T16:19:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=149487"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:19:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:19:21","slug":"ucfs-leland-nordin-wins-air-force-young-investigator-award-to-advance-infrared-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucfs-leland-nordin-wins-air-force-young-investigator-award-to-advance-infrared-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF\u2019s Leland Nordin Wins Air Force Young Investigator Award to Advance Infrared Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has awarded a UCF researcher with a 2025 Young Investigator Program (YIP) award. Assistant Professor Leland Nordin, a researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering with a joint appointment in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/college\/optics-photonics\/\">College of Optics and Photonics<\/a> (CREOL), received a three-year $450,000 grant that will support his research proposal titled \u201cNanophotonic Mid-wave Infrared Avalanche Photodiodes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nordin\u2019s proposal was selected from more than 150 submissions to the YIP program, which supports early career engineers and scientists who show promise in their research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis project builds on what I\u2019ve done for the past 10 years, and it has a broad impact,\u201d Nordin says. \u201cI came to CREOL proposing this idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nordin\u2019s idea is to enhance light matter in avalanche photodiodes (APDs), which are highly sensitive semiconductor devices that are used to detect very low levels of light. These devices can be found in autonomous vehicles, medical imaging equipment and fiber-optic communications. In the defense industry, APDs are used for communications, mapping and surveillance and are particularly useful in near darkness.<\/p>\n<p>While APDs operate well in the visible and near-infrared wavelengths, Nordin and his team in the Advanced Photonic Devices Lab aim to enhance the capabilities of APDs in the mid-infrared wavelength range. That would make it easier to detect weaker signals of heat and light such as aircraft engines, vehicles or missiles.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers plan to develop infrared detectors that are better than the previous iterations but also steppingstones for future technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re doing our first test to make individual detectors, then we\u2019ll scale up to full imagers like cameras,\u201d Nordin says.<\/p>\n<p>The UCF researcher is also a prior recipient of the U.S. Army Research Office Early Career Program Award. His cutting-edge research focuses on next-generation semiconductor materials and devices, covering design, growth, fabrication and characterization. Prior to UCF, Nordin was a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Geballe Lab for Advanced Materials. He earned his doctoral and master\u2019s degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selected from over 150 applicants, Nordin will receive a $450,000 grant to develop infrared detectors that could enhance military surveillance, autonomous vehicles and medical imaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":146023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,23,24],"tags":[973,14751,54618,14916],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-149487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-research","category-science-technology","tag-college-of-engineering-and-computer-science","tag-faculty-excellence","tag-leland-nordin","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UCF\u2019s Leland Nordin Wins Air Force Young Investigator Award to Advance Infrared Tech | University of Central Florida News<\/title>\n<meta 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