The 2010 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics
Awarded January 6, 2010, at the 40th Winter Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics.
Vladimir M. Shalaev, Purdue University
For pioneering studies of optical metamaterials and plasmonic nanostructures.
Vlad Shalaev is the Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. He earned a doctoral degree in physics and mathematics in 1983 and a master’s degree in physics, with highest distinctions, in 1979, both from the Siberian Federal University (SFU) in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Shalaev came to Purdue in 2001 after previously holding the position of the George W. Gardiner Professor of Physics at New Mexico State University. He also previously taught and conducted research at the SFU and the University of Toronto. Before coming to Canada and then to the United States, Vlad Shalaev was a Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and Paris-Sud University in France.
Vlad Shalaev is known for his pioneering contributions to nanophotonics, the optics of nanocomposites including fractals and percolation systems, and optical metamaterials. Most recently, the Shalaev research group has conducted many critical theoretical analyses and has accomplished nanofabrication and seminal experimental work on optical metamaterials that exhibit magnetic responses and negative refractive indices at optical frequencies. Also, the Shalaev group has further extended the possible applications of optical metamaterials by showing the feasibility of cloaking objects in the visible range, as well as novel approaches for engineering and controlling space for light based on transformation optics.
Professor Shalaev is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA). He is recipient of The 2010 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, the 2006 Top 50 Nano Technology Award Winner for "Nanorod Material," the 2009 McCoy Award (Purdue’s highest honor for scientific achievement), the 2007 Acorn Award, the 2006 Purdue College of Engineering Research Award, and the 2nd Prize in the USSR Academy of Science Competition on Fundamental Studies.