Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
College of Science and Engineering
Twin Cities
Award Year
2017
University Award
McKnight Land-Grant Professorship
No Monument Location
Creating New Optical Materials for Application in Photovoltaics and Optoelectronic Devices
Optical metamaterials are a new class of materials formed from the systematic and subwavelength arrangement of nanostructures to guide, confine, and bend light in nanoscale dimensions. Vivian Ferry uses techniques of synthesis, optical characterization, and modeling to understand how light interacts with these tailored metallic and oxide nanostructures, to control properties such as light absorption, luminescence, and polarization state, and to ultimately design optical metamaterials for application in solar energy conversion and optoelectronic devices.