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New Metamaterials Math Professor Receives MURI Grant for Transformational Electromagnetics Research
Mathematics Professor Robert Lipton
LSU Mathematics Professor Robert Lipton is the recipient and principal investigator for the LSU component of the recent Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) on Transformational Electromagnetics. This $7.5 million grant is intended for the innovative use of metamaterials in confining, controlling, and radiating intense microwave pulses. LSU is approved for $615,000 in funding for the first three years with an anticipated total of $1.025 million over five years. The grant, awarded to a consortium of universities led by the University of New Mexico Electrical Engineering Department, will support the design of new generation microwave sources and particle accelerators using novel properties of metamaterials, a new form of man-made materials with novel electromagnetic properties not found in nature.
Lipton’s research team includes postdoc Anthony Polizzi and math graduate student Lokendra Singh Thakur. Together, the LSU group will develop theory and numerical approaches for engineering new metamaterials for use in microwave sources and particle accelerators. "The award provides our research group with a special opportunity to solve cutting edge problems of national importance," said Lipton. "It furthers LSU’s role as a nationally recognized center for applied and interdisciplinary mathematics research.” Lipton is excited about LSU’s involvement in this high profile scientific endeavor and anticipates new scientific developments with applications ranging from compact water purification systems to super long-range communications capabilities.
Physics & ASTRONOMY
Fastest LASERS in the
Gulf South
Louis Haber, assistant professor of chemistry at LSU, has established the fastest and most powerful pulsed laser system in the Gulf South. He will use this state-of-the art system to study chemical reactions that occur on the surface of nanoparticles. “Having a fast laser is analogous to having a camera with a very fast shutter speed that allows these chemical and physical dynamics to be captured and studied on this ultrafast time scale,” said Haber. “If the laser pulse is not shorter than the process you are studying, you can't hope to see it and you'll just get averaged and blurred out results that lack the interesting and important information.” The laser in Haber’s laboratory produces 75 femtosecond pulses with 4 millijoules per pulse at 1,000 pulses per second, equaling roughly 5 x 1010 Watts per laser pulse. A typical light bulb is only 100 watts or 500,000,000 times dimmer. Chemical and physical processes such as bonds breaking and rearranging, molecules vibrating and rotating, and electrons getting excited and then relaxing back down to the ground-state all occur on very short time scales, on the order of femtoseconds (10^-15 s), 16 | The PURSUIT
picoseconds (10^-12 s), and in some cases, nanoseconds (10^-9 s). Secondly, having a short laser pulse also allows us to have a very intense beam of light during the pulse, which allows for nonlinear optical effects to occur, such as photons adding together in the sample. “The goal of my research is to learn how molecules interact with different materials on the nanoscale,” said Haber. “By focusing extremely short pulses of intense light to nanomaterial samples, we can investigate the properties of molecular absorption and surface charge densities at nanoparticle surfaces. We can also study energy transfer between molecules and nanoparticles for developing better sensors, catalysts and photovoltaics.” Haber received his bachelor’s and Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkley and conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University before joining LSU’s Department of Chemistry in August 2012.