April 3, 2019
Nader Engheta H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor, School of Engineering Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering; Physics and Astronomy University of Pennsylvania "Extreme Photonics"
4:10 PM, 134 Featheringill Hall
Refreshments served at 3:45
Abstract
Materials are often used to manipulate waves. Metamaterials have provided far-reaching possibilities in achieving “extremes” in such wave-matter interaction. Various exciting functionalities have been achieved in exploiting metamaterials and metasurfaces in nanophotonics and nano-optics. We have been exploring how extreme metamaterials can give us new platforms for exploiting waves to do certain useful functions for us. Several scenarios are being investigated in my group. As one scenario, we have been developing metastructure platforms that can solve integral equations with waves as waves interact with them. Such “metamaterial machines” can function as wave-based analog computing machines, suitable for micro- and nanoscale integration. Another scenario deals with 4-dimensional metamaterials, in which temporal variation of material parameters is added to the tools for manipulating light-matter interaction. The third category of extreme photonics is the concept of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) and near-zero-index (NZI) structures that exhibit unique features in light-matter interaction, opening doors to exciting new wave-based and quantum optical features. In this talk, I will present some of our ongoing work on extreme material platforms, and will forecast possible future research directions in these paradigms.
Bio
Nader Engheta is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, with affiliations in the Departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Bioengineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics and Astronomy. He received his BS degree from the University of Tehran, and his MS and Ph.D. degrees from Caltech. His current research activities span a broad range of areas including photonics, metamaterials, electrodynamics, nano-optics, graphene photonics, imaging and sensing inspired by eyes of animal species, microwave and optical antennas, and physics and engineering of fields and waves.
He has received several awards for his research including the 2018 Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology from the IEEE Nanotechnology Council, the 2017 William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award from the IEEE Photonics Society, the 2014 Balthasar van der Pol Gold Medal from URSI, the 2015 Gold Medal from SPIE, the 2015 Fellow of US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the 2012 IEEE Electromagnetics Award, the 2015 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2017 Beacon of Photonics Industry Award from the Photonics Media, the 2015 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship Award from US Department of Defense, the 2015 Wheatstone Lecture in King’s College London, the 2013 Inaugural SINA Award in Engineering, 2006 Scientific American Magazine 50 Leaders in Science and Technology, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He is a Fellow of seven international scientific and technical organizations, i.e., IEEE, OSA, APS, MRS, SPIE, URSI, and AAAS. He has received the honorary doctoral degrees from the Aalto University in Finland in 2016, the University of Stuttgart, Germany in 2016, and Ukraine’s National Technical University Kharkov Polytechnic Institute in 2017.