Harry Atwater

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Harry Albert Atwater (born January 22, 1960 ) is an American physicist.

Atwater graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in 1981, a master's degree in 1983, and a PhD in 1987. As a post-doctoral student , he was an IBM Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University . He has been researching and teaching at Caltech since 1988 . There he is Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science.

Atwater is founder of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech and is director of the DOE Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis.

He deals with nanophotonics and plasmonics (he gave this research area its name in 2001), especially for solar energy conversion, and developed new types of solar cells (solar cells with silicon microwires, silicon wire array solar cells ) and manufacturing methods for tandem solar cells with III-V compound semiconductors (Gallium arsenide). He is co-founder of the photovoltaic company Alta Devices in Santa Clara. Atwater has published around 450 papers and holds 48 patents as of September 2018. He is one of the ISI Highly Cited Researchers.

In 2014 he received the Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics with Albert Polman (from AMOLF in Amsterdam) for pioneering work in plasmonics and new nanophotonic ways to ultra-high efficiency in solar energy conversion (laudation). In particular, they were pioneers in the use of metallic nanostructures with surface plasmons , which allow light to be controlled at the nano level, and in the use of optical nanostructures in photovoltaics .

In 1989 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2013 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2012 he received the ENI Prize for Renewable and Nonconventional Energy and the SPIE Green Photonics Award, in 2010 he was MRS Kavli Lecturer in Nanoscience and received the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award.

He is founding editor of ACS Photonics magazine and is co-editor of the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

In 2006 he founded the Gordon Research Conference on Plasmonics.

Fonts (selection)

  • with SA Maier u. a .: Plasmonics — a route to nanoscale optical devices, Advanced Materials, Volume 13, 2001, pp. 1501-1505
  • with SA Maier u. a .: Local detection of electromagnetic energy transport below the diffraction limit in metal nanoparticle plasmon waveguides, Nature Materials, Volume 2, 2003, p. 229
  • with BM Kayes, NS Lewis: Comparison of the device physics principles of planar and radial junction nanorod solar cells, Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 97, 2005, p. 114302
  • with SA Maier: Plasmonics: Localization and guiding of electromagnetic energy in metal / dielectric structures, Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 98, 2005, p. 10
  • with JA Dionne, LA Sweatlock, A. Polman: Plasmon slot waveguides: Towards chip-scale propagation with subwavelength-scale localization, Phys. Rev. B, Volume 73, 2006, p. 035407
  • with JA Dionne, Henri Lezec : Negative Refraction at Visible Frequencies, Science, Volume 316, 2007, p. 430
  • with D. Pacifici, Henri Lezec: All-optical Modulation by Plasmonic Excitation of CdSe Quantum Dots, Nature Photonics, Volume 1, 2007, p. 402
  • The promise of plasmonics, Scientific American, Volume 296, 2007, No. 4, pp. 56-62
  • with H. Lezec, D. Pacifici, LA Sweatlock, RJ Walters: Universal Optical Transmission Features in Periodic and Quasiperiodic Hole Arrays, Optics Express, Volume 16, 2008, p. 9222
  • with M. Kuttge, H. Lezec, EJR Vesseur, AF Koenderink, FJ Garcia de Abajo, A. Polman: Local density of states, spectrum, and far-field interference of surface plasmon polaritons probed by cathodoluminescence, Physical Review B, Volume 79 , 2009, p. 113405
  • with Albert Polman : Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices, Nature Materials, Volume 9, 2010, p. 205
  • with MD Kelzenberg u. a .: Enhanced absorption and carrier collection in Si wire arrays for photovoltaic applications, Nature Materials, Volume 9, 2010, p. 239
  • with K. Aydin u. a .: Broadband polarization-independent resonant light absorption using ultrathin plasmonic super absorbers, Nature Communications, Volume 2, 2011, p. 517

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Springer Prize
personal data
SURNAME Atwater, Harry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Atwater, Harry Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1960