FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2008, 11 a.m., TI Auditorium (Directions)
AKHLESH LAKHTAKIA
The Charles G. Binder (Endowed) Professor
Dept. of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Pennsylvania State University
Sculptured thin films exemplify nanoengineered metamaterials
ABSTRACT: Sculptured thin films are multifunctional materials capable of exhibiting responses that arise solely due to their morphology. Although these materials were conceptualized and investigated several years before both the terms nanotechnology and metamaterial became commonplace in everyday technoscientific parlance, I will show in the talk that sculptured thin films exemplify nanoengineered metamaterials very well.
BIO: Akhlesh Lakhtakia obtained B.Tech. and D.Sc. degrees in Electronics Engineering from the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India in 1979 and 2006; and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1981 and 1983. Thereafter, he joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University. He has published many journal articles and chapters in research books and encyclopedias; has edited, co-edited, authored or co-authored 12 books and 7 conference proceedings; has reviewed for 99 journals; serves on the editorial boards of four electromagnetics journals; and is the first Editor-in-Chief of the online Journal of Nanophotonics published by SPIE from 2007. He served as an international lecturer for the International Commission for Optics and the Optical Society of America; held Visiting Professorships of Physics at Universidad de Buenos Aires, University of Otago, and Imperial College; was a Visiting Fellow in Mathematics at the University of Glasgow; headed the IEEE EMC Technical Committee on Nonsinusoidal Fields from 1992 to 1994; and is a Fellow of OSA, SPIE, and the Institute of Physics (UK). At Penn State, he was awarded the PSES Outstanding Research Award in 1996 and the PSES Outstanding Advising Award in 2005. He received the Faculty Scholar Medal in Engineering in 2005 at Penn State and a Nano 50 Award for innovation in 2006, and was honored as a University Distinguished Alumnus in 2007 by the University of Utah. His current research interests lie in the electromagnetics of complex materials, sculptured thin films (which won a Nano 50 Award in 2005), negative refraction, and social implications of nanotechnology.
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