Dr. Jeffrey C Livas

Astrophysics Science Division
NASA/GSFC
Code 663, Jeffrey Livas
Greenbelt, MD 20771

tel: 301 286-7289
fax: 301 286-1682
e-mail: Jeffrey.Livas-1 @ nasa.gov

Present Position

Astrophysicist in the Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. Member of the Laser Interferometric Space Antenna (LISA) mission to detect gravitational waves. Current responsibilities include Integration and Test/Validation and Verification plans and technology development.

Brief Bio

Dr. Livas joined Goddard Space Flight Center in April 2005 to work on the Laser Interferometric Space Antenna (LISA) project to detect gravitational waves. Prior to that he worked in the telecommunications industry at CIENA Corporation in Linthicum, MD on physical-layer transport technology with dense wavelength-division multiplexed (DWDM) optical communications systems. Before that he worked on free-space optical communications technology at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA. He began his career as a postdoc and then sponsored research staff member in the MIT Gravitational Wave Laboratory in Cambridge, MA where he worked on a 1.5 meter prototype interferometric gravitational wave antenna in the very early stages of what is now the LIGO project.

Educational Background

Ph.D., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, May 1987
Thesis research under Professor Rainer Weiss on "Upper Limits for Gravitational Radiation from some Astrophysical Sources."

S.B., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, June 1981

Research Interests

Research interests include gravitational wave detection, precision measurement, interferometry and optics, including optical metrology, communications, including quantum cryptology, and data analysis.

Current Projects

LISA Integration and Test/Validation and Verification plans and development, including technology development.
Development of a laboratory demonstration of optical communications plus precision ranging under a DDF award.

Selected Publications

Electronic
EE Times, Feb 23, 2004. “Critical Building Blocks for a Hybrid Optical-Switch Architecture”, Livas, J. Hofmeister, T., and Horne, K.

Conference
“Optical Transmission Evolution: from Digital to Analog to ?: The network tradeoffs between optical Proceedings transparency and reduced regeneration cost”, Livas, J.C., in preparation for J. Lightwave Technol, Jan 2005.
Summary of a workshop held at the Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) 2004 in February 2004.

“Amplifiers and Network Elements in the Metro Environment”, Livas, J.C., and Zhou, J., J. LightwaveTechnol, Vol. 22, No. 1, Jan 2004, pp. 290—293. Summary of an OFC 2003 workshop

“Optical Amplifiers and Their Applications”, edited by Kinoshita, S., Livas, J.C., and van den Hoven, G., OSA TOPS Vol. 30, (Optical Society of America, 1999). Conference proceedings for the Topical Meeting on Optical Amplifiers and Applications, June 9-11, 1999, Nara, Japan.

Technical
"Sensitivity of Optically Preamplified DPSK Receivers with Fabry-Perot Filters", Chinn, S.R., Boroson, Journals D.M., Livas, J.C., J. Lightwave Technol., Vol. 14, No. 3, Mar 1996, pp. 370-376.

"High Sensitivity Optically Preamplified 10 Gbps Receivers", Livas, J.C. Tech. Dig. OFC '96, paper PD4, San Jose, CA, 29 Feb 1996.

"Fabrication of Two-Sided Anamorphic Microlenses and Direct Coupling of Tapered High-power Diode Laser to Single-Mode Fiber", Liau, Z.L., Walpole, J.N., Livas, J.C., Kintzer, E.S., Mull, D.E., Missaggia, L.J., and DiNatale, W.F., IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 7, No. 11, Nov 1995, pp. 1315-1317.

"A One-Watt, 10 Gbps High-Sensitivity Optical Communication System", Livas, J.C., Swanson, E.A., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Bondurant, R.S., and DiGiovanni, D.J., IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 7, No. 5, May 1995, pp. 579-581.

"High Power Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier Pumped at 980 nm", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., DiGiovanni, D.J. Tech. Dig. CLEO '95, paper CPD27, Baltimore, MD, May 1995.

"A Low-Loss, Fiber-Based Wavelength-Division Multiplexer", Swanson, E.A., Livas, J.C., Bondurant, R.S. In Proc. SPIE Free-Space Laser Comm. Technol. VII, Vol. 2381, pp. 242-253, Feb 1995.

"High Data Rate Systems for Space Applications", Livas, J.C., Swanson, E.A., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S. In Proc. SPIE Free-Space Laser Comm. Technol. VII, Vol. 2381, pp. 38-47, Feb 1995.

"Applications of High Power Tapered Gain Region Devices", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., and Missaggia, L.J. Tech. Dig. LEOS '94 Meeting, Invited Paper, Nov 1994.

"All-Optical Pulse Width and Wavelength Conversion at 10 Gb/s Using a Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror", Rauschenbach, K.A., Hall, K.L., Livas, J.C., and Raybon, G. IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 6, No. 9, Sep. 1994, pp. 1130-1132.

"High Power Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier Pumped by Tapered-Gain-Region Lasers", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., and Missaggia, L.J. Opt. Amp. and their App. Tech. Dig., Vol. 14, Aug 1994, Paper WC4, pp. 29-31.

"Frequency noise of a Bragg grating fibre laser", Ball, G.A., Hull-Allen, C.G., Livas, J.C. Electron. Lett., Vol. 30, No. 15, 21 Jul 1994, pp. 1229.

"All-Optical Pulse Width and Wavelength Conversion", Hall, K.L., Rauschenbach, K.A., Livas, J.C., and Raybon, G. Proc. IEEE Summer Topicals, Lake Tahoe, NV, July 1994.

"Forward Error Correction in a 1 Gbit/s/Channel Wavelength-Division-Multiplexed System", Livas, J.C., Castagnozzi, D.M., Jeromin, L.L. Proc. IEEE Summer Topicals, Lake Tahoe, NV, July 1994.

"High-power erbium-doped fibre amplifier with 975 nm tapered-gain-region laser pumps", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., Missaggia, L.J. Electron. Lett., Vol. 30, No. 13, 23 June 1994, pp. 1054-1055.

"Single-Mode Optical Fiber Coupling of High-Power Tapered Gain Region Devices", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., Missaggia, L.J. IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 6, No. 3, Mar 1994, pp. 422-424.
"High-sensitivity optically preamplified and optically demodulated DPSK receiver with active delay-line stabilization", Swanson, E.A., Livas, J.C., and Bondurant, R.S. Tech. Dig. OFC '94 , paper ThM5, Feb 1994, pp. 236-237.

"High Sensitivity Optically Preamplified Direct Detection DPSK Receiver with Active Delay-Line Stabilization", Swanson, E.A., Livas, J.C., and Bondurant, R.S. IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 6, No. 2, Feb 1994, pp. 263-265.

"High Data Rate Error Correction Coding", Castagnozzi, D.M., Livas, J.C., Bucher, E.A., Jeromin, L.L. In Proc. SPIE Free-Space Laser Comm. Technol. VI, Vol. 2123, Jan 1994, pp. 424-433.

"Recent progress with tapered-gain-region devices", Livas, J.C., Chinn, S.R., Kintzer, E.S., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., Missaggia, L.J. Proc. SPIE Laser Diode Technol. and App. VI, Vol. 2148, Jan 1994, pp. 107-115.

"Performance of a 1 Gbit/s optically preamplified communication system with error correction coding", Castagnozzi, D.M., Livas, J.C., Bucher, E.A., Jeromin, L.L., and Miller, J.W. Electron. Lett., Vol. 30, No.1, 6 Jan 1994, pp 65-66.

"High-Power Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier Using a Single Tapered Diode Pump", Hemenway, B.R., Livas, J.C., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., Missaggia, L.J. Proc. OSA/ILS Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, Oct 1993.

"3 Gbit/s Optical Preamplified Direct Detection DPSK Receiver with 116 photon/bit Sensitivity", Paul, T.J, Swanson, E.A., Livas, J.C., Bondurant, R.S., and Magliocco, R.J. Electron. Lett., Vol. 29, No. 7, 1 Apr 1993, pp. 614-615.

"Optically Preamplified 3 Gb/s DPSK Receiver with 80 Photons/bit Sensitivity", Swanson, E.A., Livas, J.C., Bondurant, R.S., and Paul, T.J. Tech. Dig. OFC '93, paper PD29, Feb 1993.

"Gbps-class optical communications systems for free-space applications", Livas, J.C., Alexander, S.B., Kintzer, E.S., Swanson, E.A., Paul, T.J. Proc. SPIE Free-Space Laser Comm. Technol. V, Vol. 1866, Jan 1993, Los Angeles, CA.

"1 Gbit/s Coherent Optical Communications System Using a 1 W Optical Power Amplifier", Alexander, S.B., Kintzer, E.S, Livas, J.C., Walpole, J.N., Wang, C.A., Missaggia, L.J., Chinn, S.R. Electron. Lett., Vol. 29, No.1, 7 Jan 1993, pp. 114-115.

"1 Gbit/s Injection-Locked DPSK Communications Experiments for Space Applications", Livas, J.C., Alexander, S.B., Bondurant, R.S., Kaufmann, J.E., and Stevens, M.L. Electron. Lett., Vol. 27, No. 12, 6 June 1991, pp. 1042-1044.

"Ligo Vacuum System Study", Livas, J. and Moore, B. C. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 32, pp. 28-32 (1989).

"Broadband Search Techniques for Periodic Sources of Gravitational Radiation", Livas, J. In Proceedings of the 1987 NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Gravitational Wave Data Analysis, B. Schutz, ed. (1987).

"The M.I.T. Prototype Gravitational Wave Detector", Livas, J.C., Benford, R., Dewey, D., Jeffires, A.J., Linsay, P.S., Saulson, P.R., Shoemaker, D., Weiss, R. In Proceedings of the Fourth Marcel Grossman Meeting on General Relativity, R. Ruffini, ed. (1985).

"Periodic Source Search Techniques", Livas, J.C. Poster 03:09 presented at 11th Internat. Conf. Gen. Relat. and Grav., Stockholm, Sweden, July 1986.