Marin Soljačić

Marin Soljačić 2011

Marin Soljačić (born February 7, 1974 in Zagreb ) is a Croatian physicist and electrical engineer who researches in the field of nonlinear optics and is known for the development of efficient wireless energy transmission over short distances using electromagnetic fields.

Soljačić went to school in Zagreb and studied physics and electrical engineering with a university scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a bachelor's degree in 1996. He then went to Princeton University , where he received his master's degree in 1998 and in physics with Mordechai Segev in 2000 received his doctorate. From 2000 he conducted research as a Pappalardo Fellow at MIT, and from 2003 as Principal Research Scientist in the Electronics Laboratory. In 2005 he became an assistant professor at MIT.

Soljačić works both as a theorist and experimentally. He is known for innovation and research in the field of wireless energy transfer using electromagnetic fields. In contrast to the well-known attempts by Nikola Tesla at the beginning of the 20th century, which turned out to be ineffective, he uses strongly coupled magnetic fields in resonance over short distances. In 2007 he demonstrated the transmission of energy with 60 W to an incandescent lamp at a distance of 2 m (with an efficiency of 40%). To develop marketable products, he founded the company WiTricity (for wireless electricity ).

In addition, he researches non-linear optics and micro- and nano-structured optical materials and photonic crystals . He demonstrated nonlinear phenomena such as fractals, pattern formation and self-stabilizing solitons in nonlinear optics (for example necklace solitons ). In 2005 he developed an optical switch controllable by a single photon with EIT (electrically induced transparency) materials in photonic crystals. In 2000 he theoretically predicted that lasers with enough power could show self-focusing effects via the pairing of particles in a vacuum and the resulting non-linear interaction. 2009 he his group have developed optical waveguides, as rectifier effect ( Photonic chiral edge states in photonic crystals), the ideas from the theory of quantum Hall effect were transferred

In 2008 he became a MacArthur Fellow . In 2005 he received the Adolph Lomb Medal.

See also

• List of Croatian inventors and discoverers

Web links

• Photonics & Modern Electro-Magnetics Group. MIT(English). 
• Marin Soljačić. Optical Physicist, Class of 2008. MacArthur Foundation(English). 
• Engineer Named MacArthur Fellow for Work on Wireless Power and Self-focusing Lasers. In: IEEE Spectrum. September 23, 2008(English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Your theoretical work was published in 2008: Karalis, Joannopoulos, Soljacic Efficient wireless non-radiative mid-range energy transfer , Annals of Physics, Volume 323, 2008, pp. 34–48, the experimental work on this: Kurs, Johannopoulos, Karalis, Soljacic , Fisher, Moffatt Wireless power transfer via strongly coupled magnetic resonances , Science, Volume 317, 2007, p. 83
2. ↑ Sears, Soljacic, Segev, Krylov, Bergman Cantor set fractals from solitons , Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 84, 2000, p. 1902
3. ↑ Soljacic, Joannopoulos, Lidorikis, Lene Hau Ultralow-power all optical switching , Applied Physics Letters, Volume 86, 2005, p. 171101, Bermel, Rodriguez, Johnson, Joannopoulos, Soljacic Single photon all optical switching using wave-guide cavity quantum electrodynamics , Physical Review A, Volume 74, 2006, p. 043818
4. ^ Soljacic, Segev Self-trapping of electromagnetic beams in vaccum supported by QED nonlinear effects , Phys. Rev. A, Volume 62, 2000, p. 043817
5. ↑ Wang, Chong, Joannopoulos, Soljacic Reflection-Free One-Way Edge Modes in a Gyromagnetic Photonic Crystal , Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 2008, p. 013905 , the same Observation of unidirectional backscattering-immune topological electromagnetic states , Nature, Volume 461, 2009, p. 772, abstract . They took up ideas from F. Duncan M. Haldane and Raghu Phys. Rev. Lett., Volume 100, 2008, 013904.