My name is Pranob Misra and I am presently working as a Research and Development Engineer for Integrated Micro Sensors Inc [1]. Simultaneously, I am also employed as a Research Scientist at the Center for Advanced Materials [2] at the University of Houston. The facility is a NASA research center. In the framework of my present responsibilities, I am working on growth, characterization and fabrication of III-nitride based devices which include: visible-blind photodetectors in addition to UV-polarization sensitive photodetectors. The devices based on III-nitrides have both civilian and military use. For example the polarization sensitive photodetectors can be used for advanced target identification of use in missile defense, while the UV-IR detector using GaN on Silicon wafer will be used for fire-flame detection. Plasma-assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) is the method of choice for growth of semiconductor layers, multiple quantum wells and devices.
Prior to this assignment, I was working towards my Ph.D. at Paul-Drude Institute for solid state electronics [3] and Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany [4]. I was working under Prof. Dr. K. H. Ploog who is also the director of PDI. The doctor thesis was entitled "Optical polarization anisotropy in nonpolar GaN thin films due to crystal symmetry and anisotropic strain". The thesis as a pdf format can be downloaded from the Bibliothek (Library) of the Humboldt University [5]. (Look under the link "volltext" on the left hand side of the page)
I did my Integrated Master of Science (M. Sc) in Physics from IIT, Kanpur, India. I also spent a summer at the University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany, where I was working as an Intern under Prof. Dr. D. Weiss.