Seminars and Events

CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series

Scalable Manufacturing in an R&D Lab: Supporting Startup and Research Success in a high-mix environment

Event Details

June 12, 2026

Join Zoom Webinar

Passcode: 862998

Host: Steve Crago
POC: Amy Kasmir

Lessons learned from the UCSB Nanofab, from most-taught manufacturing practices to internal lab methods. What have we learned about how to handle the huge variety of R&D for research, while also supporting high-repeatability for startups? Industrial and Research groups needs in a fab are sometimes considered to be in opposition, so how do you bridge that gap and ensure the synergistic success of both in the same lab, on the same tools?

Speaker Bio

Demis D. John graduated with his Ph.D. in 2012 from the research group of Dr. Daniel J. Blumenthal at UCSB. He worked on creating ultra-low-loss optical waveguides, in close collaboration with the John E. Bowers research group, involving a great deal of materials analysis and fabrication along with optoelectronic simulation; resulting in the now-ubiquitous Silicon Nitride waveguide platform for photonic integrated circuits, achieving the project goal of scalable ultra-low loss waveguides. From 2012 to 2017, Demis worked at Praevium Research Inc. where he developed near-infrared and mid-infrared tunable semiconductor lasers for medical imaging and gas spectroscopy, respectively. Combined, Demis has been using the UCSB Nanofab since 2006. Demis currently is the manager of the Process Group at the UCSB Nanofab, and is knowledgeable in fabrication techniques and troubleshooting processing issues, along with materials characterization techniques and developing new repeatable procedures for fabricating devices. Demis routinely consults on all aspects of fabrication, from novel fab & investigating device physics, to scaling processes for both research and industry. In addition, Demis managers all "remote fabrication services" for external customers, and scaled up the Nanofab Internship programs and local semiconductor workforce development pipelines in Santa Barbara.