Speaker:Professor Rana Biswas 

Professor Rana Biswas 

Iowa State University

Title:  Enhancing light matter interactions with nanophotonics

Bio: Dr. Biswas received the Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University. He has been a Consultant to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; Postdoctoral Member of Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories; and Consultant to Exxon Research and Engineering Company.

Research being conducted by Dr. Biswas spans several major fields including calculations of the properties of bulk materials and surfaces; thin film semiconductors and electronic materials, photonic crystals, subwavelength arrays, electromagnetic simulations, sensors and atomistic modeling of microelectronic processes.

His current research at the MRC includes:

1. Photonics. Design and simulation of photonic band gap crystals. Electromagnetic simulations and wave propagation in photonic crystals. Development of novel electromagnetic applications in the microwave, millimeter-wave, infrared and optical frequencies utilizing photonic crystals (theory and experiment). Nanostructured materials and ceramics for nano-photonics applications.
2. Microelectronics/Semiconductors. Simulation of the structure, metastability, light-induced defects and hydrogen motion in solar cell materials and devices. Amorphous silicon and nanocrystalline materials for renewable energy applications. Strained silicon substrates for CMOS devices. Semiconductor process modeling and regrowth of amorphized layers in silicon processes. Molecular dynamics simulations at the nanoscale.
3. Sensors. High-sensitivity miniaturized on-chip plasmonic MEMS sensors for detection of gases and toxic agents. Applications development with industrial collaborators. Directional antennas and receivers. Finite-difference-time-domain simulations. Design of infrared sources and emitters using periodic crystals. Scattering matrix formulations.
4. Nanoscale Phenomena.   Modeling matter and processes at the nanoscale with atomistic-level simulations. Use of parallel-computing methodologies. Chemical-mechanical planarization. Chemical sensors from nano-memebranes and micro-cantilevers.