Akhlesh Lakhtakia, University Distinguished Professor, is one of five Penn State Faculty to receive the 2004-05 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. Established in 1980, the award honors a single contribution or series of contributions around a single theme and was given to Dr. Lakhtakia for his seminal contributions to the study of electromagnetic fields in complex materials and media, which, in the last five years, have culminated in the theoretical and experimental development of sculptured thin films and, in the last year, has led to his theoretical treatise (2004) on the negative-phase-velocity propagation of light in gravitationally affected vacuum.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, distinguished professor of engineering science and mechanics, and Russell Messier, professor of engineering science and mechanics, are the authors of a new book titled Sculptured Thin Films: Nanoengineered Morphology and Optics.

The text pairs the authors’ knowledge of thin-film morphology with the response characteristics of optical sculptured thin film (STF) devices, enabling scientists and technologists to design STF materials and devices for optical applications.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Distinguished Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, will present a two-part lecture series on Sculptured Thin Films and Topics in Electromagnetics at the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, from July 15-25, 2005.

The series, co-sponsored by the International Commission for Optics, the Department of Electronics at QAU, and the National Center for Physics, will focus first on the morphology of sculptured thin films at the 1-1000 nm length scales with emphasis on growth techniques and ways to achieve distinct morphologies and, second, on advanced topics in electromagnetics including Complex Mediums, Voigt Waves and Negative Refraction in Outer space.