Nader Engheta | |
|---|---|
 Engheta in August 2022 | |
| Born | 8 October 1955[1] |
| Alma mater | |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1999) IEEE Electromagnetics Award (2012) Balthasar van der Pol Gold Medal from URSI (2014) SPIE Gold Medal (2015) IEEE Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology (2018) Max Born Award (2020) Isaac Newton Medal (2020) Franklin Medal (2023) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, electrical engineering |
| Institutions | University of Pennsylvania |
| Thesis | On the Radiation Patterns of Interfacial Antennas (1982) |
| Doctoral advisor | Charles H. Papas |
Nader Engheta (Persian: نادر انقطاع) (born 1955 in Tehran) is an Iranian-American scientist. He has made pioneering contributions to the fields of metamaterials, transformation optics, plasmonic optics, nanophotonics, graphene photonics, nano-materials, nanoscale optics, nano-antennas and miniaturized antennas, physics and reverse-engineering of polarization vision in nature, bio-inspired optical imaging, fractional paradigm in electrodynamics, and electromagnetics and microwaves.[2][3][4]
After earning a B.S. degree from the school of engineering (Daneshkadeh-e-Fanni) of the University of Tehran,[5] he left for the United States in the summer of 1978 and earned his Masters and PhD degrees from the Caltech.[6]
He is one of the original pioneers of the field of modern metamaterials, and is the originator of the fields of near-zero-index metamaterials, plasmonic cloaking and optical nano circuitry (optical metatronics,[citation needed]).
His metamaterial-based optical nano circuitry, in which properly designed nano structures function as "lumped' optical circuit elements such as optical capacitors, optical inductors and optical resistors.[7][8][9][10] These are the building blocks for the metatronic circuits operating with light. This concept has been recently verified and realized experimentally by him and his research group at the University of Pennsylvania.[11] This provides a new circuit paradigm for information processing at the nanoscale.
His near-zero-index structures exhibit unique properties in light-matter interaction that have provided exciting possibilities in nanophotonics.
His plasmonic cloaking ideas have led to new methods in stealth physics.
He and his group have developed several areas and concepts in the fields of metamaterials and plasmonic optics, including, (1) ‘extreme-parameter metamaterials’ and 'epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterials';[12] (2) the concept of Omega structures, as one of the building blocks of structured materials,;[13][14] (3) ultrathin cavities and waveguides, with sizes beyond diffraction limits, providing possibilities for unprecedented miniaturization of devices;[15] (4) supercoupling phenomena between waveguides using low-permittivity ENZ metamaterials,;[16][17] (5) extended Purcell effects in nano-optics using the ENZ phenomena, in which enhanced photon density of states occurs in a relatively large area with essentially uniform phase;[18] (6) far-field subwavelength imaging lens based on ENZ hyperbolic metamaterials;[19] (7) scattering-cancellation-based plasmonic cloaking and transparency,;[20][21] (8) merging the field of graphene with the field of metamaterials and plasmonic optics in infrared regime, providing the roadmaps for one-atom-thick optical devices and one-atom-thick information processing,;[22][23] (9) microwave artificial chirality;[24] (10) “signal-processing” metamaterials and “meta-machine”, and (11) “digital” metamaterials.
He is currently the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania,[25] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, affiliated with the departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Bioengineering, materials science and engineering, and Physics and Astronomy.
Professor Engheta has received the following honors and awards:[26]
