Fourier Optics Lab - 202A EES
Akhlesh Lakhtakia's research has spanned much of the electromagnetic spectrum: from electromagnetostatics to visible and low ultraviolet. From 1986 onwards, he has concentrated on the behavior of electromagnetic fields and waves in complex materials. His most notable research work from 1983 to 1994 was on electromagnetic fields in isotropic chiral materials. These materials have either handed molecules or handed microstructures, and are therefore birefringent in spite of their isotropy. Overall, he authored or co-authored two books and over 160 journal publications on chiral materials, ranging over electromagnetostatics, wave propagation, radition, dyadic Green functions, scattering and extinction theorems, and homogenization of artificial chiral materials. In 1994, he proved that chiral materials are the most general linear isotropic materials possible within the framework of the post-electron electromagnetism; and he developed a constraint on the electromagnetic constitutive relations of general linear materials.
From isotropic chiral materials to more general complex materials was a natural progression. A major accomplishment of his is the elucidation of the singularity properties of several dyadic Green functions relevant to linear bianisotropic materials. As a result, the familiar Maxwell Garnett and the Bruggeman approaches for the homogenization of particulate composite materials were greatly extended and improved from 1994 to 1997. He is currently involved with the strong-property-fluctuation theory for higher-order homogenization of linear and nonlinear bianisotropic composite materials.
Roughly in 1993, began yet another major theme in his research. Generalizing liquid crystals into the so-called helicoidal bianisotropic materials, he conceived of sculptured thin films (STFs). The technology for STFs was articulated byhim in conjunction with R. Messier (ESM, Penn State) in 1995, when the two presented STFs as "optical-benches-on-a-chip" for biomedical, chemical, optical, optoelectronic and nuclear applications. Since then, a substantial amount of research has been done by him, his students and colleagues at Penn State, University of Alberta, Imperial College (London), and University of Otago (New Zealand). Proof-of-concept experiments have been carried out under his guidance, while he has been thoroughly immersed in theoretical research on electrostatics, optics and acoustics of STFs. Seven experimental groups in North America, one in the UK, one in Japan, and one in New Zealand are now active.
Lakhtakia has been interested in fundamental electromagnetics throughout his career. In 1992, he edited a substantial volume entitled ESSAYS ON THE FORMAL ASPECTS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY, containing 21 long chapters contributed by 25 authors worlwide. He organized and edited a 500-page volume entitled ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS IN UNCONVENTIONAL MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES, which appeared in 2000 with 10 long chapters contributed by 14 researchers from 6 countries. In 2003, he co-edited editing a successor volume entitled INTRODUCTION TO COMPLEX MEDIUMS FOR ELECTROMAGNETICS AND OPTICS.
Lakhtakia has been interested in fractals and chaos for more than a
decade now. That area provided him with another major accomplishment.
He conceptualized the use of Mandelbrot and Julia sets for control of
systems that deteriorate with the passage of time. Working with S.R.T.
Kumara (ISE, Penn State) on a Risky Research Grant from the National
Science Foundation, he crystallized the idea into reality using artificial
neural networks. Even in its infancy, this work won the Novel Engineering
Applications Award (First Runner--Up) at the Artificial Neural Networks
in Engineering Conference in 1994. A prototype system, implemented for
turning on lathes, was succesfully tested and a new control paradigm
thus emerged.Lakhtakia has also carried out research on the electrodynamics
of carbon nanotubes, acoustics and elastodynamics, piezoelectrc materials,
and geophysical wave propagation. Recently, he has become interested
in the physiological model of female infertility.