Prof. Nader Engheta: Metaphotonics - OSA Annual Lecture

The event, free of charge, will take place in the South Kensington Campus of Imperial College, Huxley Building, in Lecture Theatre 308, on Friday 13th December 16:00-17:00, and will be followed by drinks and snacks in the Level 8 common room of the Blackett Laboratory, where attendees will have a chance to discuss with Prof. Engheta and other researchers present.

This event is organised by Imperial College Optics Society, a diverse group of graduate students working in optics who volunteer in the organisation of events such as lectures, seminars and other activities aimed at professional development and outreach in optics and related sciences, sponsored by OSA and SPIE. The Chapter welcomes students from all backgrounds with an interest in the optical sciences. Any further info may be found at: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/photonics/about-us/optical-society/

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 in metaphotonics 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 perform analog computation such as solving integral and differential equations and inverting matrices 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 of spatial inhomogeneities for manipulating light-matter interaction. The third category for metaphotonics is the concept of near-zero-index structures and associated photonic doping 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 for metaphotonics, and will forecast possible future research directions in these paradigms.

Biography:

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.

He has received several awards for his research including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology, the Gold Medal from SPIE, the Balthasar van der Pol Gold Medal from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), the William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, induction to the Canadian Academy of Engineering as an International Fellow, the Fellow of US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the IEEE Electromagnetics Award, the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award, the Beacon of Photonics Industry Award, the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship Award from US Department of Defense, the Wheatstone Lecture in King’s College London, the 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.

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.