Vladimir (Vlad) M. Shalaev is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Scientific Director for Nanophotonics at Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University.
Education and career V. Shalaev earned a Master of Science Degree in physics (summa com laude) in 1979 from Krasnoyarsk State University (Russia) and a PhD Degree in physics and mathematics in 1983 from the same university. Over the course of his career, Shalaev received a number of awards for his research in the fields of nanophotonics and metamaterials, and he is a Fellow of several of Professional Societies (see the Awards, honors, memberships section below). Prof. Shalaev (with his h-index of 132, as of January 2026, and 77,000 citations, in total, according to Google Scholar) has nearly 1,000 publications in the field of science and technology, including 1 monograph and 2 co-authored books, 4 edited/co-edited books, 30 invited book chapters, and 50 USA patents. He is ranked #29 in electronics and electrical engineering among the USA researchers and #50 worldwide, according to Research.com website. Prof. Shalaev is ranked #22 in the “optics” category out of ~ 80,000 entries in the Stanford list of top 2% world’s highest-cited scientists (career-long). He is also recognized as Highly Cited Researcher (in physics) by the Web of Science Group for eight consecutive years, in 2017-2024.
Research Vladimir M. Shalaev is recognized for his pioneering studies on linear and nonlinear optics of random nanophotonic composites that had helped to mold the research area of composite optical media. He also contributed to the emergence of a new field of engineered, artificial materials - optical metamaterials. Currently, he studies new phenomena resulting from merging metamaterials and plasmonics with quantum nanophotonics.
Optical metamaterials Optical metamaterials (MMs) are rationally designed composite nanostructured materials that exhibit unique electromagnetic properties drastically different from the properties of their constituent material components. Metamaterials offer remarkable tailorability of their electromagnetic response via shape, size, composition and morphology of their nanoscale building blocks sometimes called 'meta-atoms'. Shalaev proposed and demonstrated the first optical MM that exhibits negative index of refraction and the nanostructures that show artificial magnetism across the entire visible spectrum. (Here and thereafter, only selected, representative papers by Shalaev are cited; for complete list of Shalaev's publications visit his website.) He made important contributions to active, nonlinear and tunable metamaterials, which enable new ways of controlling light and accessing new regimes of enhanced light–matter interactions. Shalaev also experimentally realized negative-refractive-index MMs where optical gain medium is used to compensate for light absorption (optical loss). He made significant contributions to the so-called Transformation Optics, specifically on optical concentrators and "invisibility cloaks". In collaboration with Noginov, Shalaev demonstrated the smallest, 40-nm, nanolaser operating in the visible spectral range. Shalaev also made seminal contributions to two dimensional, flat metamaterials – metasurfaces – that introduce abrupt changes to the phase of light at a single interface via coupling to nanoscale optical antennas. He realized extremely compact flat lens, ultra-thin hologram and record-small circular dichroism spectrometer compatible with planar optical circuitry. MM designs developed by Shalaev are now broadly employed for research in sub-wavelength optical imaging, nanoscale lasers, and novel sensors. Shalaev’s work had a strong impact on the whole field of metamaterials. Three of Shalaev’s papers - Refs. , , and - remain among the top 50 most-cited out of over 750,000 papers included in the ISI Web of Science OPTICS category since 2005 (as of January 2021).
Random composites Shalaev made pioneering contributions to the area of random optical media, including fractal and percolation composites. He predicted the highly localized optical modes -'hot spots' - for fractals and percolating films which were later experimentally demonstrated by Shalaev in collaboration with the Moskovits and Boccara groups. Furthermore, he showed that the hot spots in fractal and percolation random composites are related to localization of surface plasmons.− These localized surface plasmon modes in random systems are sometimes referred to as Shalaev's "hot spots": see e.g. This research on random composites stemmed from the early studies on fractals performed by Shalaev in collaboration with M. I. Stockman; a theory of random metal-dielectric films was worked out in collaboration with A. K. Sarychev. Shalaev also developed fundamental theories of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and strongly-enhanced optical nonlinearities in fractals and percolation systems and led experimental studies aimed to verify the developed theories.− Shalaev also predicted that nonlinear phenomena in random systems can be enhanced not only because of the high local fields in hot spots but also due to the rapid, nanoscale spatial variation of these fields in the vicinity of hot spots, which serves as a source of additional momentum and thus enables indirect electronic transitions. Shalaev’s contributions to the optics and plasmonics of random media− helped transform those concepts into the area of optical metamaterials.−− Owing to the theory and experimental approaches developed in the area of random composites, optical metamaterials have become a mature research field rich in new physics. Shalaev’s impact on the development of both fields is in identifying the strong synergy and close connection between these two frontier fields of optics that unlock an entirely new set of physical properties.
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