Steve Frisken

Steven Frisken is a serial technology entrepreneur and inventor. He has founded several successful start-ups in optical communications and medical imaging and holds over 25 granted US patents. He is most recognized for his invention of an LCOS based Wavelength Selective Switch which was commercialized by Engana and later acquired by Finisar Corporation. These WSS products have helped to shape the evolution of Flexible Grid optical transport networks. His venture, Cylite, is developing a highly parallelized Optical Coherence Tomography imaging platform with applications in Ophthalmology. He is a Fellow of Optica, and in 2018 he received the David Richardson Medal.

Frisken’s research has included non-reciprocal optical routing, dynamic spectral filtering and phase based spatial light modulators (SLMs) for wavelength routing in fiber optic transmission networks. His research on interferometry has led to micro-optic coherent receivers for optical transmission, spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Recently, he has been researching the application of OCT to in-vivo optical metrology of the eye.