Rate My Professor Bill Corcoran

Corcoran's research focuses on optical communications, employing photonic technologies including optical microcombs, stimulated Brillouin scattering, optical injection locking, and nonlinear optical devices to advance high-capacity fibre systems and enable ultra-dense data transmission. As an ARC Future Fellow from 2023 to 2027, he leads the project 'Parallel Lines: Ultra-dense optical systems for extreme data-rates.' Since December 2023, he co-leads the Information and Intelligence Theme of the ARC Centre of Excellence on Optical Microcombs for Breakthrough Science (COMBS). His awards include Outstanding Research by an Early Career Researcher from Monash University Faculty of Engineering (2016), Optica Outstanding Reviewer (2019), CISRA Postgraduate Prize (2009), Dean's Prize for Outreach (2008), Postgraduate Research Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement (2009), and Wanda Henry Prize for Best Student Paper (2010). Key publications encompass 'Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with a single chip source' (Nature Communications, 2020), 'A perspective on optical microcomb distillation: A tool to break power barriers for tiny rainbows' (Applied Physics Reviews, 2024), 'Self-Locking of Free-Running DFB Lasers to a Single Microring Resonator for Dense WDM' (2025), and 'Feedback Control in Microwave Photonic Transversal Filter Systems Based on Optical Microcombs' (2024). Corcoran is a guest editor for IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics (2022), senior member of Optica, and member of IEEE and the Australian and New Zealand Optics and Photonics Society. He supervises PhD students and participates in programming committees for conferences such as OFC (2022-2024) and OECC (2024-2025).