Sergey Frolov, VP Technology
Sergey is leading our UAV design efforts and related technical development programs. He brings his expertise in product design and development, technological know-how and extensive knowledge of optical and solid-state physics to pursue new approaches in developing clean renewable energy sources, particularly those based on solar energy. Most recently, Sergey has been the VP of Strategic Initiatives at Inplane Photonics, acquired by CyOptics / Avago. In this capacity, Sergey was responsible for exploring new technologies, applications and business opportunities.
Prior to that, Sergey was the Director of Device Design at Inplane Photonics, leading the optical design efforts in integrated planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) and waveguide amplifiers. Sergey was with Inplane Photonics from the launch of the company in 2001 and was instrumental in helping Inplane Photonics become the international leader in optical waveguide integration and the only company in the world to commercially produce waveguide-based, Er-doped optical amplifiers. Based on its unique technology, Inplane Photonics developed a suite of integrated products consisting of a large library of waveguide elements with different functionalities based on different optical materials that can be seamlessly combined on the same optical chip in order to form a miniature optical subsystem. Such subsystems are then able to perform several complex functions and displace a large number of discrete components in an optical network. Inplane Photonics team pushed the limits of PLC technology beyond what any other PLC company in the world could achieve today. Among these achievements are first demonstrations of multiple 3D waveguide integration, hybrid high-power laser integration and stabilization, manufacturing of amplified reconfigurable optical add-drop modules on a chip and others.
Prior to joining Inplane, Sergey worked at Bell Laboratories of Lucent Technologies as a primary investigator and a member of the technical staff. There, he conducted research on a number of different materials and their applications in telecommunications, electronics and display technologies. Among these were novel organic and inorganic semiconductors such as conducting polymers, ultrapure semiconducting organic crystals, multiple-quantum well lasers, quantum cascade lasers, exotic glasses and organo-metallic compounds. Sergey lead studies of optical and electronic processes in these materials using various advanced spectroscopic tools such as ultrafast laser spectroscopy. He developed a one-of-a-kind laser system capable of probing optical materials by multiple synchronized laser beams with better than 100 fsec time resolution. This system was particularly useful in investigating various opto-electronic conversion processes such as those occurring in lasers, photodetectors and solar cells.
Prior to Lucent, Sergey worked as a research scientist at the John Dixon Laser Institute at the University of Utah and General Physics Institute in Moscow where he studied electro-optical properties of various thin-film semiconductors, including amorphous silicon, fullerenes and amorphous III-V materials. Sergey has a MS degree in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Russia) and a PhD degree in Physics from the University of Utah. Sergey has authored more than 30 papers and currently holds many US Patents and several European Patents.