Optical Sciences Colloquium: New Physics from Photonic Systems

Abstract: Nanophotonics offers unprecedented opportunities to mold the flow of light: novel material-systems can thus be implemented in which laws of physics can be tailored almost at will. I will describe this on a few recent examples from our work: non-Abelian topology, new framework for understanding nanoplasmonics, and AI in photonics.

Bio: Marin Soljačić received a BsE degree in physics and a BsE degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1996. He earned his PhD in physics at Princeton University in 2000. In September 2000, he was named an MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics, and in 2003 was appointed as a Principal Research Scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. In September 2005, he became an Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT, in July 2010 an Associate Professor of Physics at MIT, and in July 2011 a Full Professor of Physics. He is a founder of WiTricity Corporation (2007), LuxLabs (2017), as well as Lightelligence (2017). His main research interests are in artificial intelligence as well as electromagnetic phenomena, focusing on nanophotonics, non-linear optics, and wireless power transfer. He is a co-author of more than 200 scientific articles, more than 100 issued US patents, and he has been invited to give more than 100 invited talks at conferences and universities around the world. He is the recipient of the Adolph Lomb medal from the Optical Society of America (2005), and the TR35 award of the Technology Review magazine (2006). In 2008, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship “genius” grant. He is an international member of the Croatian Academy of Engineering since 2009. In 2011 he became a Young Global Leader (YGL) of the World Economic Forum. In 2014, he was awarded Blavatnik National Award, as well as Invented Here! (Boston Patent Law Association). In 2017, he was awarded "The Order of the Croatian Daystar, with the image of Ruđer Bošković", the Croatian President’s top medal for Science. In 2017, the Croatian President also awarded him with "The Order of the Croatian Interlace" medal. 

Zoom Link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/94012959093