I am grateful and humbled that The Malibu Times published a feature article about the issuance of my 68th patent (April 3, 2014 edition). However, I wish to clarify a few points that may lead to misinterpretations regarding my previous teaching position at Pepperdine, as well as improper attribution of us as inventors of the photonic crystal fiber (PCF).
First, as I indicated in the press release that I wrote and submitted to the paper, I was an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University in the 1980s, and not a professor. The difference between these two faculty positions is significant and any misinterpretation can lead one to conclusions regarding one’s ethics. Second, the novel photonic crystal fiber (PCF) was invented and first demonstrated by various research groups in the 1990s, and, most def- initely, not us. Their original work involved PCFs using silica (glass) at visible wavelengths.
The basic invention of the novel PCF structure is not our idea and any misattribution to us would be construed as unethical. Specifically, in our invention, we took the basic PCF structure and engineered it to work in the infrared using silica (glass). It is well known that glass is lossy at these long wavelengths. Hence, using glass in the infrared is counterintuitive, since materials with loss are typically excluded from consideration. Our invention teaches that, with clever design rules, PCFs using glass materials can, indeed, function in the infrared, which can lead to next-generation applications in such areas as medical and dental laser tools, communication and diagnostic devices.
David M. Pepper, Ph.D