Allan Bruce, VP Materials
Allan leads the efforts in manufacturing multi-functional skins and PV power systems at Sunlight®. He has a background in successful small company leadership combined with more than 25 years technical experience in relevant technologies. He is a recognized expert and innovator in new materials and fabrication processes for optics, PV and communication systems. Allan was a co-founder of Inplane Photonics and provided business and technical leadership in his capacities as President, CTO and VP of Business Development from inception through the company’s acquisition by CyOptics / Avago. During his tenure, Allan was instrumental in establishing Inplane as a leader in photonic integration on a Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) platform. The company developed business in both defense and commercial markets and provided Highly Integrated Photonic (HIP) products including Erbium Doped Waveguide amplifiers (EDWAs) and lossless (subsystems-on-a-chip) specifically designed to meet customer needs for small, high performance, light, robust and manufacturable devices for communication networks.
Prior to Inplane Photonics, Allan was a Research Scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories, later Lucent Technologies. He was a principal investigator and technical leader on in-house and government funded programs. His scientific contributions included developing novel “best in class” EDWA and a wide range of materials applicable to “multi-delta” PLCs. He worked closely with the Optical Fiber and Optoelectronic Products Divisions on new product implementation. One of his prominent contributions was the DC stability enhancement of Lithium Niobate Waveguide Modulators. This was a key differentiator which enabled Lucent/Agere to achieve market dominance from 1999-2001. In 2001 the revenue stream from this product family approached $1B.
Allan was awarded a B.Sc. with first class honors and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is a fellow of the American Ceramic Society and a past-Chair of its Glass and Optical Materials Division. He has published more than 80 technical papers, edited several books and currently holds many US Patents and several European Patents.