Michael Motyka, master of science candidate in the department of engineering science and mechanics under the research supervision of Professor Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been awarded the Newport/Spectra Award by SPIE, International Society for Optical Engineering.

He will present a paper entitled “Excitation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons at the Interface of a Metal and a Sculptured Nematic Thin Film” at the Optics and Photonics 2008 meeting of SPIE, to be held in San Diego, CA on August 10-14, 2008.