Asst. Prof. Uğur Teğin has won the Optica Foundation's Challenge for his proposal.

Asst. Prof. Uğur Teğin from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering has won the Optica Foundation's Challenge for his proposal, "Inverse-designed energy-efficient nonlinear photonic multi-channel neural network.”

His project focuses on designing and building photonic neural network architectures to create energy-efficient optical computing solutions. The goal is to develop a high-speed, scalable alternative to reduce power consumption in data-heavy AI tasks.

The Optica Foundation, which recognizes ten early-career professionals with innovative ideas in photonics, invited researchers to propose solutions that address major global challenges in Environment, Health, and Information using photonics technology.