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School of Engineering

Faculty & Staff Joel Falk

Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering


412-624-9672
Fax: 412-624-8003
Office: BENDM 348

Education

Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering), Stanford University

courses

Professional Interests

Prof. Falk has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since the mid-1970’s. He is a former department chairman and has served as the director of the Swanson’s School of Engineering, Engineering Physics Program. He is interested in undergraduate education and is currently starting his second five-year term as an evaluator for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, Prof. Falk worked for nearly six years at GTE Sylvania in an electrooptics research and development group. In early 1980’s he spent a sabbatical year in the Laser Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Dr. Falk's current research efforts are concerned with the use of Raman spectroscopy for detection and concentration analysis of gases. This work examines the enhancement of Raman signal strengths using hollow-core waveguides, capillaries and photonic bandgap fibers to contain the scattering medium. The work has applications in maximizing the efficiency of high-power natural gas turbines while simultaneously minimizing pollutant output. Although experimental Raman-based results are promising, gas sensing in these waveguides is limited by a background silica Raman signal. Our work investigates how the presence of silica Raman reduces the detection sensitivity and usefulness of capillary and hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber- based sensing.

Selected Publications

M. Buric, K. P. Chen, J. Falk and S. D. Woodruff, "Improved Sensitivity Spontaneous Raman Scattering Multi-Gas Sensor," Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics, Baltimore, MD, June 2009. Available from IEEE Xplore  Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2009. CLEO 2009.

M. Buric, K. Chen, J. Falk, R. Velez and S. Woodruff, "Raman Sensing of Fuel Gases Using a Reflective Coating Capillary Optical Fiber," SPIE Symposium on Defense Security + Sensing, April 15, 2009.

M. Buric, K. Chen, J. Falk and S. Woodruff, "Photonic-Bandgap-Fiber Sensors for Gas Detection," Chapter to be published in Trends in Photonics 2008, Research Signpost.

M. Buric, K. Chen, J. Falk and S. Woodruff, "Enhanced spontaneous Raman scattering and gas composition analysis using a photonic crystal fiber," Applied Optics, Vol. 47, Issue 23, pp. 4255-4261, 2008.

M. Buric, K.Chen, J. Falk and St. Woodruff, "Enhanced Spontaneous Raman Scattering using a Photonic Crystal Fiber," Conference on Lasers and Electrooptics, San Jose, CA, May 2008. Available from IEEE Xplore  Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2008. CLEO 2008.

M. Buric, K.P. Chen, J. Falk, S. D. Woodruff, "Biomedical Optics Photonic-Crystal-Fiber Raman Spectroscopy for Real-Time, Gas-Composition Analysis." Laser Applications to Chemical, Security and Environmental Analysis (LACSEA) March 17-20, 2008 paper: PDPJMA9, OSA Technical Digest (CDPaper available through Optics, InfoBase).

M. Buric, Q. Wang, J. Falk, K. P. Chen, and J. Canning, "Chemical Sensing Using a Piezo-Electric Tunable Erbium Fiber Ring Distributed Feedback laser,"  Australian Conference on Optical Fibre Technology (ACOFT) Sydney, Australia, July 2008.

 

Benedum Hall

Dedicated in 1971, Benedum Hall is home to exploration and discovery.

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