Yurii Vlasov

Yurii Vlasov (born 1964) is a John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).

Vlasov earned his M.S. University of St.-Petersburg, Russia in 1988 and Ph.D. from the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technology, St.-Petersburg, Russia in 1995.

Prior to joining UIUC in 2016, Vlasov held various positions at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. In 2001-2015 he led company-wide efforts in integrated silicon nanophotonics and more recently in neuromorphic computing architectures.

Vlasov is recognized both as a scholar in the area of extreme optical confinement at the nanoscale – nanophotonics, as well as an industrial engineer who has led the  transition of this basic scientific knowledge (TRL level 1–2) into a real-world manufacturable (TRL level 8–9) silicon nanophotonics technology.

The CMOS9WG technology developed under the leadership of Vlasov at IBM and lately deployed at GlobalFoundries is enabling high-performance optical connectivity in supercomputers, data centers, metro, and long-haul communications, while significantly reducing cost and maximizing energy efficiency.

Recognition
Vlasov has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021, for "contributions to development and commercialization of silicon photonics for optical data communications". He has also been elected a Fellow of Optical Society of America in 2007, a Fellow of American Physical Society in 2007, and a Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for his contributions to nanophotonics including photonic crystals and silicon photonics.