Ekmel Özbay is a Turkish professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Physics Departments at

Bilkent University Bilkent University () is a private non-profit research university located in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded by İhsan Doğramacı, the first president of the Council of Higher Education and the head of the prominent Doğramacı family, with th ...

and the director of the Nanotechnology Research Center, and Space Technologies Research Center (''BILUZAY'') in Ankara.

Biography

Ekmel Özbay was born on March 25, 1966, in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. He received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the

Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a prestigious public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, ...

, Ankara, Turkey in 1987. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1989 and 1992. From 1992 to 1993, Özbay worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford University. His research in Stanford focused on high speed resonant tunneling and optoelectronic devices. Between 1993 and 1995, he worked as a scientist in the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

Ames National Laboratory Ames National Laboratory, formerly Ames Laboratory, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Ames, Iowa, and affiliated with Iowa State University. It is a top-level national laboratory for research on national sec ...

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

in the area of photonic band gap materials. He joined

in 1995, where he is currently a full professor in the physics and electrical electronics engineering departments. His research areas include

metamaterials A metamaterial (from the Greek word μετά ''meta'', meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word ''materia'', meaning "matter" or "material") is a type of material engineered to have a property, typically rarely observed in naturally occur ...

photonic crystals A photonic crystal is an optical nanostructure in which the refractive index changes periodically. This affects the propagation of light in the same way that the structure of natural crystals gives rise to X-ray diffraction and that the atomic ...

MOCVD Metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy (MOVPE), also known as organometallic vapour-phase epitaxy (OMVPE) or metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD), is a chemical vapour deposition method used to produce single- or polycrystalline thin films. ...

growth, fabrication and characterization of nanoelectronic and nanophotonic

GaN The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places * Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated '' ...

AlGaN Aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN) is a semiconductor material. It is any alloy of aluminium nitride and gallium nitride. The bandgap of AlxGa1−xN can be tailored from 4.3eV (xAl=0) to 6.2eV (xAl=1). AlGaN is used to manufacture light-emitting di ...

devices, and high-performance near-infrared semiconductor photodetectors and lasers. Since 2002, he is a topical editor of the journal ''

Optics Letters ''Optics Letters'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America). It was established in July 1977. The editor-in-chief is Miguel Alonso (University of Rochester). The journal cove ...

''. He has published 410 journal articles and 435 international conference proceedings. His publications have received more than 11500 citations according to the

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

. Özbay holds 2 patents in the area of photonic crystals. His recent review article on plasmonics appeared as an invited review article in Jan. 13th 2006 issue of ''Science''. Currently, he is principal investigator and executive committee member of 3 EU-FP projects: STREP project EU-DALHM (Development and Analysis of Left Handed Materials), NoE-PHOREMOST (Nanophotonics to realize Molecular-Scale Technologies), and NoE-METAMORPHOSE (MetaMaterials Organized for radio, millimeter wave, and PHOtonic Superlattice Engineering). He is currently acting as the national delegate for Turkey in the program committee of EU-NMP (nanotechnologies, manufacturing and processes) which is in the process of preparing the workprogramme for EU-FP7. Besides the EU projects, he is principal investigator on 25 national projects supported by various funding agencies. He has worked with various high-tech companies in

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and Turkey.

Awards

Özbay was the 1997 recipient of the

Adolph Lomb Medal The Adolph Lomb Medal, awarded by the Optical Society is a prize for young scientists (within 10 years of their highest degree) for their contributions to optics. It is named after Adolph Lomb, treasurer of the Optical Society of America from its fo ...

of the Optical Society of America and in 2005 of the European Union Descartes Science Award. He is also the recipient of the 1995 METU Parlar Foundation Young Scientist Award, 1996 Tugac Foundation Technology Development Award, 1997

TÜBİTAK The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (, TÜBİTAK) is a national agency of Turkey whose stated goal is to develop "science, technology and innovation" (STI) policies, support and conduct research and development, and to ...

Young Scientist Award, and 1998 Sedat Simavi Foundation Science Award. In 2024, he won the METU Parlar Foundation Science Award.

Personal life

Outside of the workplace, Özbay has a number of children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ozbay, Ekmel Turkish scientists Turkish physicists Turkish nanotechnologists Metamaterials scientists Turkish electrical engineers Turkish materials scientists Academic staff of Bilkent University Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Middle East Technical University alumni Ankara Science High School alumni Recipients of TÜBİTAK Science Award Members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences Living people 1966 births Optical engineers Electrical engineering academics Turkish engineering academics METU Mustafa Parlar Foundation Science Award winners