CURRICULUM VITAE

Personal Detail

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Current Position
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Phone No. (Office)
Email
Gender
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: Farah Diana binti Muhammad

: Senior Lecturer, Universiti Putra Malaysia
: Department of Physics, Faculty of Science,
Universiti Putra Malaysia,
43400 UPM Serdang,
Selangor, Malaysia
: +60169807365
: +60389466988
: faradibah90@yahoo.com
: Female
: Muslim
: Malaysian
: Single
: 900408-03-5244
Employment History

Jan 2015 Present : Senior Lecturer

Department of Physics, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Educational Background

Oct 2011 2014

: University of Malaya (UM)

Ph.D. - Experimental Physics (Fiber lasers)
Research title: Graphene as saturable absorber for photonics
applications
Award: Distinction

July 2008 2011

: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

Bachelor Degree of Science (Pure Physics)

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CGPA: 3.95
Jan - May 2008

: Express UTM-MARA Program

CGPA: 3.94

2006 - 2007

: MRSM Pengkalan Chepa, Kota Bharu.

SPM: 10 A1, 1 A2
Areas of Expertise

Mode-locked fiber laser, Q-switched fiber laser, supercontinuum, single longitudinal

mode fiber laser, graphene, Brillouin fiber laser, dual-wavelength fiber laser.
Current Research

In my research work for PhD, I investigate the role of graphene as saturable

absorber (SA) in fiber lasers such as for the generation of Q-switched and mode
locked pulses, as well as single longitudinal mode (SLM) operation. Graphene, a
single layer of carbon atom, is nowadays considered a great candidate to be applied as
the SA with its desirable optical characteristics such as ultrafast recovery time and
ultrawideband absorption due to its zero bandgap energy and linear dispersion of
Dirac electrons. With its advantage over semiconductor saturable absorber mirror
(SESAM) in terms of the cost, tuning range and ease of fabrication, graphene has
been widely accepted to replace the usage of SESAM. In this work, several methods
of graphene integration onto the fiber ferrule have been demonstrated. The saturable
absorption properties of the deposited graphene by each different method have been
measured and analysed. Taking advantage of the unique properties of graphene, the
graphene deposited in this work has been demonstrated for Q-switched and modelocked fiber laser generation in various setup configurations using different types of
filtering mechanisms such as tunable bandpass filter (TBF), arrayed waveguide
gratings (AWGs), fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) and Mach Zehnder filter (MZF). In the
case of mode-locking, comparisons of the output performance are made in terms of
spectral bandwidth, pulse duration, mode locking behavior and other mode locked
pulse characteristics. Further investigation on graphene-based mode locked fiber laser
is carried out by using an exotic and highly doped Zirconia-erbium doped fiber (ZrEDF) as the gain medium, which is then used as a pulse source for supercontinuum
(SC) generation with an advantage of low cost, since only a short length of single
mode fiber (SMF) is used as the nonlinear medium. In addition, graphene has been
demonstrated to produce SLM fiber laser operation in this work. By heterodyning this
SLM laser output and an external tunable laser source (TLS) at a photodetector, a
tunable radio frequency generation has be realized.
My principal supervisor is Prof. Harith Ahmad, who is known as the father of
photonics in Malaysia, with more than 200 publications in ISI Journals and an H
index of 25.

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Research Ambitions

I intend to establish international research collaboration with the world renowned

centers of excellence and top institutions in the world such as Optoelectronics
Research Centre (ORC) in University of Southampton, Nanomaterials and
Spectroscopy Group in the Engineering Department of Cambridge University,
Stanford Photonics Research Center and Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab in
Stanford University, which is expected to form a beneficial partnership between
Malaysian institution and these world renowned centers of excellence. This research
collaboration will include collaboration in experimental works, research publications
in high ranking journals and patents production in the area of Optics and Photonics.
Teaching Experience

As a former candidate of UM Bright Sparks program, I had carried out some

supervision work on Masters and Ph.D. students such as by guiding, handling and
training them in some experimental works as well as in writing papers at Photonics
Research Centre (PRC). These are the list of the students names and their respective
research title that I had guided to date:
1. Jaffar Mohd Taib (S-band multiwavelength fiber laser)
2. Nor Farhah Razak (Ultranarrow linewidth SLM fiber laser)
3. Nur Azlin Alwi (Distributed feedback fiber laser)
4. Nur Sabirah Azhari (S-band Q-switched and mode locked fiber laser)
5. Khalilah Zatiliman (Sagnag loop mirror fiber laser)
6. Zulkalnaini Muda (Tapered fiber for sensor application)
7. Siti Nadhirah Hassan (Supercontinuum generation by NPR technique)
8. Siti Nur Ain Sakeh (Bismuth-Erbium doped fiber laser)

List of Publications

2014
1. Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Pua, C. H., & Thambiratnam, K. (2014). Dualwavelength fiber lasers for the optical generation of microwave and terahertz
radiation. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 20(5), 1-8.

2.

Thambiratnam, K., Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., Zulkifli, A. Z.,
Paul, M., & Harun, S. W. (2014). Q-switching and mode-locking in highly-doped
Zr2O3-Al2O3-Er2O3 doped fiber lasers using graphene as a saturable absorber. IEEE
Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 20(1),
1100108.

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3. Ahmad, H., Azhari, N. S., Zulkii, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., &
Harun, S. W. (2014). S-band SLM distributed Bragg reector fiber
laser. Laser Physics, 20(6), 065109.
4. Ahmad, H., Razak, N. F., Zulkifli, M., Muhammad, F. D., Munajat, Y., & Harun, S.
W. (2014). Closely-spaced dual-wavelength fiber laser using ultra-narrow
bandwidth optical filter for low radio frequency generation. Applied Optics,
53(19), 4123-4127.

5. Ahmad, H., Ismail, M. F., Hassan, S. N. M., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., &
Harun, S. W. (2014). Supercontinuum generation from a sub-megahertz repetition
rate femtosecond pulses based on nonlinear polarization rotation technique.
Journal of Modern Optics.

6. Harun, S. W., Ahmad, F., Md Nor, R., Zulkepely, N. R., Muhammad, F. D., Ahmad,
H., & Arof, H. (2014). Mode-locked soliton erbium-doped fiber laser using a
single-walled carbon nanotubes embedded in poly-ethylene oxide thin film
saturable absorber. Journal of Modern Optics, 61(6), 541-545.
7. Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkii, M. Z., & Harun, S. W.
(2014). Wideband tunable Q-switched fiber laser using graphene
as a saturable absorber. Journal of Modern Optics, 60(18), 15631568.
8. Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., & Ahmad, H. (2014). Graphene based Qswitched tunable S-band fiber laser incorporating arrayed waveguide gratings
(AWG). Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics & Materials, 23(1), 1450004.
2013
9. Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Samangun, J. M., Abdul-Rashid,
H. A., & Harun, S. W. (2013). Temperature-insensitive bend sensor using entirely
centered erbium doping in the fiber core. Sensors, 13(7), 9536-9546.
10. Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M., & Harun, S. (2013). Graphene-based
mode-locked, spectrum tunable fiber laser using Mach Zehnder filter. IEEE
Photonics Journal, 5(5), 1501709.
11. Ahmad, H., Razak, N. F., Zulkifli, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Munajat, Y., &
Harun, S. W. (2013). Ultra-narrow linewidth single longitudinal mode Brillouin
fiber ring laser using highly nonlinear fiber. Laser Physics Letters, 10(10),
105105.

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12. Zulkifli, M. Z., Ahmad, H., Taib, J. M., Muhammad, F. D., Dimyati, K., & Harun,
S. W. (2013). S-band multiwavelength Brillouin/Raman distributed Bragg
reflector fiber lasers. Applied Optics, 52(16), 3753-3756.

13.

Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, A. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., Thambiratnam,

K., & Harun, S. W. (2013). Mode-locked L-band bismutherbium fiber laser
using carbon nanotubes. Applied Physics B, 1-6.

14. Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, A. Z., & Harun, S. W.
(2013). Tunable graphene-based Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser using fiber
Bragg grating. Journal of Modern Optics, 60(3), 202-212.

15.

Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., & Harun, S. W. (2013). Qswitched pulse generation from an all-fiber distributed Bragg reflector laser using
graphene as saturable absorber. Chinese Optics Letters, 11(7), 071401.

16.

Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Taib, J. M., & Harun, S. W.
(2013). Tunable S-band output based on Raman shift in dispersion shifted fiber.
Journal of Modern Optics, 60(9), 737-740.

17. Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, M. Z., Hassan, N. A., Muhammad, F. D., & Harun, S. W.
(2013). SCL triple wavelength superluminescent source based on an ultrawideband SOA and FBGs. Quantum Electronics, 43(10), 923-926.
2012
18. Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., Harun, S. W., & Ahmad, H. (2013, May).
High resolution interrogation system for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor
application using radio frequency spectrum analyser. In 2012 National Physics
Conference: (PERFIK 2012) (Vol. 1528, No. 1, pp. 444-449). AIP Publishing.

19.

Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., Latif, A. A., Harun, S. W., & Ahmad, H.
(2012). Graphene-based saturable absorber for single-longitudinal-mode
operation of highly doped erbium-doped fiber laser. IEEE Photonics Journal,
4(2), 467-475.

20.

Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., Latif, A. A., & Harun, S. W.
(2012). Tunable radio frequency generation using a graphene-based single
longitudinal mode fiber laser. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 30(13), 20972102.

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21. Ahmad, H., Muhammad, F. D., Zulkifli, M. Z., & Harun, S. W. (2012).
Graphene-oxide-based saturable absorber for all-fiber Q-switching with a simple
optical deposition technique. IEEE Photonics Journal, 4(6), 2205-2213.

22.

Ahmad, H., Zulkifli, M. Z., Muhammad, F. D., Jemangin, M. H.,

Dimyati, K., Pal, B. P., & Harun, S. W. (2012). Passively Q-Switched 11-channel
stable Brillouin erbium-doped fiber laser with graphene as the saturable absorber.
IEEE Photonics Journal, 4(5), 2050-2056.
List of Oral and Poster Presentations

1. High resolution interrogation system for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor
application using radio frequency spectrum analyser, 2012 National Physics
Conference (PERFIK 2012), Colmar Tropicale, Bukit Tinggi, Pahang, 19th 21th
November 2012.
2. High resolution temperature sensor using fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), 4th
International Graduate Conference on Engineering Science & Humanity 2013
(IGCESH 2013), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, Johor, 16th 17th
April 2013.
3. Graphene based Q-switched tunable S-band fiber laser incorporating Arrayed
Waveguide Gratings (AWG), 9th International Symposium on Modern Optics and
Its Applications (ISMOA 2013) Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung, 24th 27th
June 2013.
4. Graphene based harmonically mode-locked and Q-switched tunable S-band fiber
laser incorporating Arrayed Waveguide Gratings, Departmental Seminar, Physics
Department, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 11th June 2013.
5. Temperature-insensitive bend sensor using entirely centered erbium doping in the
fiber core, Departmental Seminar, Physics Department, Faculty of Science,
University of Malaya, 8th January 2014.

International Program/Extra curricular activities

1. Siegman International School on Lasers, Stanford University, Stanford, California,

USA, 3-8 August 2014
2. Global Outreach Program, Inha University, Korea, 27 Jan-6 Feb 2011.

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Patents

Patent filing: Graphene-oxide based saturable absorber for all-fiber Q-switched EDFL
Skills / Strength

Competent user of Microsoft package including Power Point, Word and Excel
Self-motivated, committed, proactive, responsible and hardworking
Languages (spoken/written): English and Malay
Interests: Swimming, playing chess, playing piano, snorkeling
Referees

The following persons have agreed to provide any additional information regarding
my qualifications and character:
,
Dean Bureau of Innovation & Consultancy/Professor
Department of Physics,
Faculty of Science,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
Skudai, Johor.
Phone No. (Office): .
Email: jalil@bip.utm.my
Prof Zainal Abidin
Prof Adzir
Prof Harith Ahmad (Former supervisor)
Photonics Research Centre,
Department of Physics,
Faculty of Science,
University of Malaya,
50603 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel. No. (Office): +603-7967..
Email: harith@um.edu.my

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