UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Electrical engineer Chris Giebink has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project, “Non-Hermitian Organic Photonics.”
The highly distinguished NSF CAREER award supports junior faculty who conduct innovative research, have shown excellence in teaching and are able to successfully integrate the two. The award provides five years of financial support.
Giebink, the Charles K. Etner assistant professor of electrical engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Penn State, will receive approximately $500,000 to experimentally develop a new class of synthetic optical materials in which the means by which light is bent, absorbed and amplified are varied independently of one another at the nanoscale.
“In particular, this work focuses on periodic spatial arrangements of these three properties that lead to unusual one-way effects for light propagation that may ultimately find application in future laser and lightwave circuit technologies,” explained Giebink. “The themes of this research tie in closely with planned educational efforts involving course development for graduate and undergraduate students as well as outreach activities aimed at increasing the exposure of K-12 students to optical science and technology.”
Giebink’s career at Penn State began in 2011 following a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory. His research interests highlight the combination of organic and inorganic materials in optoelectronic and photonic devices, with an emphasis on applications for solar energy conversion.
Giebink is also a recipient of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Young Faculty Award and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award. He holds five patents and is a member of the Optical Society of America, the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Materials Research Society and the American Physical Society.
He received bachelor's degrees in engineering science and physics from Trinity University and a doctorate degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University.