Dennis W Prather

Dennis W. Prather is an American electrical engineer. He is the College of Engineering Alumni Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware and co-founder and president of Phase Sensitive Innovations. He is a fellow of IEEE, SPIE, Optica, and the National Academy of Inventors.

Education Prather received the B.S.E.E. (1989), M.S.E.E. (1993), and Ph.D. (1997) degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. His doctoral dissertation, advised by Christopher C. Davis, was titled "Analysis and synthesis of finite aperiodic diffractive optical elements using rigorous electromagnetic models."

Research Prather's early work concerned the analysis and design of diffractive optical elements, the subject of his dissertation and of a 2004 SPIE tutorial text written with Donald C. O'Shea, Thomas J. Suleski, and Alan D. Kathman. IEEE cited “contributions to diffractive optical systems” when it elected him a Fellow in 2020. In 2018 they reported a thin-film lithium niobate electro-optic modulator with a terahertz-range operating bandwidth. University accounts also describe work on silicon photonic RF sources and RF-photonic phased arrays. Phase Sensitive Innovations has received Small Business Innovation Research support related to that work.

University profiles report differing publication and patent totals, typically on the order of 600 or more papers and several dozen patents or invention disclosures. Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, selected 2017 and inducted 2018 Fellow of Optica (then the Optical Society of America), 2005, "for contributions to the development of theoretical electromagnetic models as well as the design and experimental validation of micro- and nano-photonic optical elements and devices" Fellow of SPIE, 2004 William J. Kastner Award for Naval Engineering Excellence, 2000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 1999 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, 1999

Selected works