Alexandra Boltasseva is Ron And Dotty Garvin Tonjes Professor of

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

and computer engineering at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

, and

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

for

The Optical Society Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conferenc ...

's ''

Optical Materials Express ''Optical Materials Express'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by The Optical Society. It covers advances in and applications of optical materials, including but not limited to nonlinear optical materials, laser media, na ...

'' journal. Her research focuses on plasmonic metamaterials, manmade composites of metals that use

surface plasmon Surface plasmons (SPs) are coherent delocalized electron oscillations that exist at the interface between any two materials where the real part of the dielectric function changes sign across the interface (e.g. a metal-dielectric interface, such ...

s to achieve

optical properties The optical properties of a material define how it interacts with light. The optical properties of matter are studied in optical physics, a subfield of optics. The optical properties of matter include: *Refractive index * Dispersion *Transmittance a ...

not seen in nature.

Education and Career

Boltasseva studied her bachelor and masters in physics at the

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; russian: Московский Физико-Технический институт, also known as PhysTech), is a public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares speciali ...

, completing her research projects on quantum-well lasers at the

Lebedev Physical Institute The Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS or just LPI) (in russian: Физи́ческий институ́т имени П.Н.Ле́бедева Российской академии наук (ФИАН)), situated ...

. She moved to the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

for her PhD studies in

nanophotonics Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, and nanotechnology. ...

and

nanofabrication Nanolithography (NL) is a growing field of techniques within nanotechnology dealing with the engineering (patterning e.g. etching, depositing, writing, printing etc) of nanometer-scale structures on various materials. The modern term reflects on a ...

, working with Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi. Following her PhD, Boltasseva worked at two photonics start-up companies before returning to the

as a postdoc and subsequently an associate professor. In 2008 she moved to

and is currently the Ron And Dotty Garvin Tonjes Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as holding a courtesy appointment in Materials Engineering.

Research

Prof. A. Boltasseva’s team specializes in nano- and quantum photonics,

plasmonics Plasmonics or nanoplasmonics refers to the generation, detection, and manipulation of signals at optical frequencies along metal-dielectric interfaces in the nanometer scale. Inspired by photonics, plasmonics follows the trend of miniaturizing opt ...

, optical metamaterials, optical materials, and

. The central theme of Boltasseva’s research is finding new ways for the discovery, realization, and machine-learning-assisted optimization of nanophotonic structures - from material growth to advanced photonic designs and device demonstrations. Prof. Boltasseva’s team aims at developing new platforms to unlock properties of nanophotonic structures in previously unavailable designs and wavelength regimes and to enable new generations of low-loss, tunable, reconfigurable, semiconductor-compatible devices for applications in on-chip circuitry, information processing, data recording/storage, sensing, medical imaging and therapy, energy conversion and

quantum information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both t ...

technologies.

Awards, honors, memberships

A. Boltasseva's research earned her a number of awards:

• In 2021, for the second consecutive year named i
The Highly Cited Researchers™
list b
Clarivate™

• 2020 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI)

• 2019 Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• 2018 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists Finalist

• 2017 Fellow of The International Society For Optics And Photonic (

SPIE SPIE (formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, later the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It ...

)

• 2008 Young Elite-Researcher Award from the Danish Councils for Independent Research

Optical Society

Boltasseva was assigned as

for

's ''

'' journal in 2016, taking over the role from David J. Hagan, founding editor-in-chief.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boltasseva, Alexandra Living people American electrical engineers American computer scientists Purdue University faculty American women engineers American women computer scientists 20th-century American engineers 20th-century women engineers 21st-century American engineers 21st-century women engineers Fellows of Optica (society) Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni 1978 births 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American women scientists Women in optics Russian emigrants to the United States People from Chuvashia American women academics