Professor Quimby teaches courses and engages in research in the area of photonics, specializing in lasers, fiber optics, and the optical properties of materials. He particularly enjoys developing and teaching interdisciplinary courses that are relevant and interesting to both science and engineering students. Examples of courses he has developed at WPI include PH2501 Photonics, PH2502 Lasers, and PH2601 Photonics Laboratory. Professor Quimby also oversaw the renovation and equipping of Olin 205 as it was transformed into the IPG Photonics Laboratory, and currently serves as director of the laboratory. This lab supports not only the Photonics laboratory course but also many student projects, both graduate and undergraduate. Professor Quimby enjoys working in the lab with students, because it is, as he says, "light work."
Research Interests
Fiber Optics
Lasers
Optical Properties of Solids
Scholarly Work
R.S. Quimby, W.J. Miniscalco, and B. Thompson, J. Appl. Phys. 76, 4472-4478 (1994), "Clustering in erbium-doped silica glass fibers analyzed using 980-nm excited-state absorption"
R.S. Quimby, K.T. Gahagan, B.G. Aitken, M.A. Newhouse, Optics Letters 19, 2021 (1995), "Self-calibrating quantum efficiency measurement technique and application to Pr3+ -doped sulfide glass"
R.S. Quimby and B.G. Aitken, J. Appl. Phys. 82, 3992 (1997), "Anomalous temperature quenching of fluorescence in Pr3+ doped sulfide glass"
R.S. Quimby, P.A. Tick, N.F. Borrelli, and L.K. Cornelius, J. Appl. Phys. 83, 1649 (1998) , "Quantum efficiency of Pr3+ doped transparent glass ceramics".
R.S. Quimby, B.N. Samson and B.G. Aitken, "Recent developments in Pr amplifiers", OSA Trends in Optics and Photonics Vol. 44, Optical Amplifiers and Their Applications, A. Mecozzi, M. Shimizu, and J. Zyskind, eds. (Optical Society of America, 2000)
R.S. Quimby, J. Appl. Phys. 90, 1683 (2001), "Quantum efficiency of 1460 nm transition and energy transfer in Tm3+ doped glass"
