Alexandra Boltasseva
Alexandra Boltasseva is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, and editor-in-chief for The Optical Society's Optical Materials Express journal. Her research focuses on plasmonic metamaterials, manmade composites of metals that use surface plasmons to achieve optical properties not seen in nature.
Early Life and Education
Boltasseva studied her bachelor and masters in physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, completing her research projects on quantum-well lasers at the Lebedev Physical Institute. She moved to the Technical University of Denmark for her PhD studies in nanophotonics and nanofabrication, working with Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi.Research
Comparing graphene, complex oxides, and transition metal nitrides, she noted that the latter are thermally stable and biocompatible as well as compatible with computer systems. In the future, this research may let us combine optics with scale of traditional electronics.Awards
A. Boltasseva's research earned her a number of awards including| • 2013 IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award |
| "For seminal contributions to the development of metal-dielectric waveguides for integrated optics and novel approaches for realization of nanoplasmonic devices" |
| • 2011 MIT Technology Review Top Young Innovator |
| "Alexandra Boltasseva... is replacing the metals normally used in metamaterials with semiconductors, such as zinc oxide, that have been doped with aluminum or gallium. Doping the semiconductor makes it behave more like the metals used in metamaterials, but without the associated optical losses." |
• 2008 Young Elite-Researcher Award from the Danish Councils for Independent Research
and she was 2018 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists Finalist.