Nader Engheta A Leader In Science
The Scientific American has selected Nader Engheta as one of the top 50 leaders in Science and Technology for the year 2005-2006.
Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues have proposed a standardized set of plasmonic components akin to resistors, capacitors and inductors, which could let engineers build circuits using light rather than electricity.
Nader Engheta is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Iran, he is now a US citizen.
Each year Scientific American honors 50 individuals, teams, companies and other organizations whose accomplishments in research, business or policy making demonstrate outstanding leadership. Nader Engheta has been chosen for his 'research contributions to the emerging field of plasmonics.' Other Scientific American awardees this year included Al Gore and Warren Buffet.
The list appeared in the December issue of Scientific American.
Nader Engheta received his BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, and his MS degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering both from the California Institute of Technology.
After spending one year as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Caltech and four years as a Senior Research Scientist at Kaman Sciences Corporation, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he rose through the ranks and is currently H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering.
The University of Pennsylvania is an Ivy League school, counted as one of the top schools in America, with other Ivy Leagues such as Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. In the 2007 US News & World Report, the University of Pennsylvania was selected seventh in the nation, next to the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which all tied at fourth place.
Mr. Entegha is also a member of the Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Bioengineering at University of Pennsylvania. He was the graduate group chair of electrical engineering from July 1993 to June 1997.
Scientific American 50: Trends in Research, Business and Policy
Like plasmonics, the related science of metamaterials-the creation of artificial atoms with optical properties unlike those of any natural atom-is a door into a world so fantastic that it must surely be imaginary, and yet isn't. This spring, metamaterials pioneer John B. Pendry of Imperial College, London, along with David Schurig and David Smith of Duke University, and, independently, Ulf Leonhardt of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland showed that a shell of metamaterials can redirect light around an object and render it invisible-not just very dark (as in current stealth technology) but truly invisible. Although such a cloaking device has obvious military applications, the researchers intended it more as an example of what metamaterials can do.
The most immediate practical application for plasmonics is in electronics. Engineers have long sought to harness light for computational purposes, but photons are much harder to work with than electrons are. New materials make it easier. Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues have proposed a standardized set of plasmonic components akin to resistors, capacitors and inductors, which could let engineers build circuits using light rather than electricity.
Much as sandwiching an electrical insulator between two conductors creates an electrical capacitor, putting a nonplasmonic material (such as a nanometer-size glass bead) in a light beam creates an optical capacitor. A plasmonic material (a metal) acts as an inductor. These devices allow engineers to wire up optical "circuits" like electronic ones. The "current" that flows around the circuit is not the motion of electric charges, but fluctuations in the electric field associated with the light. One day soon, the fantastic world of plasmonics may be hanging from the rack at Radio Shack.
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