Jason G. Valentine

Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor of Physics
Deputy Director, Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Overview:

In the Valentine group we are developing optical metamaterials which are nanostructured composites that allow one to engineer optical properties at will. In our group we are exploring both metal-based (plasmonic) metasurfaces as well as low-loss all-dielectric metasurfaces. On a fundamental level, we use the engineering freedom associated with nano-scale structuring to realize and investigate optical properties that don’t exist in nature such as a negative and zero-index of refraction. On a more applied level, we are using metamaterials to realize novel device applications such as ultra-compact optical elements, optical information processors, and dynamically reconfigurable optics.

Awards:

-Chancellor's Faculty Fellow
-Chancellor's Research Award
-ONR Young Investigator Award
-National Science Foundation CAREER Award
-Vanderbilt Junior Faculty Teaching Fellowship
-MRS Gold Student Award
-Time magazine ‘Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2008', #7
-Time magazine ‘Top 50 Inventions of 2008’, #28
-Discover magazine ‘Top 100 Story of 2008’, #7