Andrea Alu, Assistant Professor - Homepage at UT Austin, ECE

Welcome to Andrea Alù's Homepage

Andrea Alù is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX, USA. He is affiliated with the Wireless Networking and Communications Group, an interdisciplinary center for research and education at The University of Texas at Austin with an emphasis on industrial relevance. He is also affiliated with the Applied Research Laboratories at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is involved in research projects on electromagnetics and acoustics.

Dr. Alù is currently seeking brilliant and highly motivated graduate students and postdocs to join his group at UT Austin. If you believe to be an exceptional candidate with interests in electromagnetism, plasmonics, metamaterials and/or acoustics please feel free to contact me.

Dr. Andrea Alù received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Roma Tre in Rome, Italy in 2007. Before joining the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 2009, he has developed significant parts of his PhD and postgraduate research at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. He has authored over 170 journal papers, 15 book chapters and 300 conference papers, with over 3,500 citations (h-index 27, from ISI). He has received several international awards in recognition of his research achievements, including the OSA Adolph Lomb Medal, the URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal, the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award, the DTRA Young Investigator Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, four URSI Young Scientist Awards, the Raj Mittra Travel Grant Young Researcher Award, the L. B. Felsen Award for Excellence in Electrodynamicsa and the SUMMA Graduate Fellowship in Advanced Electromagnetics.

Dr. Alù is an Associate Editor of IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters and Optics Express, Editor of Metamaterials and Advanced Electromagnetics and guest editor of several special issues on metamaterials and plasmonics. His research specializes in metamaterials and plasmonics, with applications spanning microwaves, infrared, optical frequencies and acoustic waves, including nanooptics and nanophotonics, cloaking and transparency, nanocircuits and nanostructures modeling, miniaturized antennas and nanoantennas. His research has significantly contributed to the fields of plasmonic cloaking, optical nanoantennas and nanocircuits and to the theory and modeling of metamaterials. He is currently teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on electromagnetics and metamaterials. A selected list of recent publications may be found here.

News

May 15, 2013: Our paper R. Fleury, and A. Alù, “Furtive Quantum Sensing Using Matter-Wave Cloaks,,” has been published in Physical Review B, Rapid Communications, Vol. 87, No. 20, 201106(R) (5 pages).
May 14, 2013: Our paper F. Monticone, N. Mohammadi Estakhri, and A. Alù, “Full Control of Nanoscale Optical Transmission with a Composite Metascreen,” has been published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 110, No. 20, 203903 (5 pages). The paper has been selected as PRL Editor's suggestion!
May 10, 2013: Our paper R. Fleury, and A. Alù, “Enhanced Superradiance in Epsilon-Near-Zero Plasmonic Channels,” has been published in Physical Review B, Rapid Communications, Vol. 87, No. 20, 201101(R) (5 pages).
May 10, 2013: Our paper N. Mohammadi Estakhri, and A. Alù, "Physics of Unbounded, Broadband Absorption/Gain Efficiency in Plasmonic Nanoparticles,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 87, No. 20, 205418 (9 pages).
May 10, 2013: Our paper C. Argyropoulos, K. Q. Le, N. Mattiucci, G. D’Aguanno, and A. Alù, “Broadband Absorbers and Selective Emitters Based on Plasmonic Brewster Metasurfaces,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 87, No. 20, 205112 (6 pages).
May 7, 2013: The comment G. Eleftheriades, A. Alù, “Comment on ‘Propagation and Negative Refraction’,” has been published in IEEE Microwave Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 24-30.
May 6, 2013: The paper A. Alù, "Wave-Shaping Surfaces,” has been published in Physics, Vol. 6, No. 53.
April 24, 2013: Our paper G. Castaldi, S. Savoia, V. Galdi, A. Alù, and N. Engheta, “PT Metamaterials via Complex-Coordinate Transformation Optics,” has been published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 110, No. 17, 173901 (5 pages). The paper has been selected as PRL Editor's suggestion!
April 7, 2013: Christos Argyropoulos has received the 2013 Raj Mittra Travel Award!
April 1, 2013: Our invited paper A. Alù, and N. Engheta, “Theory, Modeling and Features of Optical Nanoantennas,” has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Special Issue on Antennas and Propagation at Mm‐ and Sub Mm‐Waves, Vol. 61, No. 4, Part 1, pp. 1508-1517.
April 1, 2013: Our paper P. Y. Chen, C. Argyropoulos, and A. Alù, “Terahertz Antenna Phase Shifters Using Integrally-Gated Graphene Transmission-Lines,” has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Special Issue on Antennas and Propagation at Mm‐ and Sub Mm‐Waves, Vol. 61, No. 4, Part 1, pp. 1528-1537.
March 27, 2013: our new paper on mantle cloaking New J. Phys. 15, 033037 (2013) has raised international attention on the general news. Press release. Some examples: CNN, NBC, Fox, Discovery, US News, Daily Mail, Physics World, TIME. Please check our recent TEDx talk on the topic for more info.
March 25, 2013: Andrea Alù has received the 2013 OSA Adolph Lomb Medal for 'outstanding contributions to the fields of optical metamaterials and plasmonic optics, and for development of the concept of plasmonic cloaking'. The award, established in 1940, recognizes noteworthy contributions made to optics before reaching the age of 35.
March 25, 2013: Our paper J. C. Soric, P. Y. Chen, A. Kerkhoff, D. Rainwater, K. Melin, and A. Alù, “Demonstration of an Ultralow Profile Cloak for Scattering Suppression of a Finite-Length Rod in Free Space,” has been published in New Journal of Physics, Vol. 15, No. 3, 033037 (18 pages).
March 15, 2013: Our paper Y. Zhao, and A. Alù, “Tailoring the Dispersion of Plasmonic Nanorods to Realize Broadband Optical Meta-Waveplates,” has been published in Nano Letters, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 1086-1091.
March 12, 2013: Our paper F. Monticone, C. Argyropoulos, and A. Alù, “Multi-Layered Plasmonic Covers for Comblike Scattering Response and Optical Tagging,” has been published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 110, No. 11, 113901 (5 pages). The paper has been selected as PRL Editor's suggestion!
March 4, 2013: Our paper D. Rainwater, A. Kerkhoff, K. Melin, J. C. Soric, G. Moreno, and A. Alù, New J. Phys. 14, 013054 (2012) has been selected as one of the 2012 Highlights of the New Journal of Physics.
February 19, 2013: Watch our TEDx talk on our recent work on metamaterials and cloaking! Coverage from the Cockrell School of Engineering and the script are here. Also on the TED website.
January 29, 2013: A News and Views article from Peter Nordlander highlighting our recent Nature Nanotechnology paper on magnetic-based Fano resonant nanocluster has appeared in the same issue]!
January 29, 2013: Our paper Y. Lee, K. Hoshino, A. Alù, and X. Zhang, “Tunable Directive Radiation of Surface-Plasmon Diffraction Gratings,” has been published in Optics Express, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 2748-2756.
January 27, 2013: Our paper F. Shafiei*, F. Monticone*, K. Q. Le, X. X. Liu, T. Hartsfield, A. Alù, and X. Li, “A Subwavelength Plasmonic Metamolecule Exhibiting Magnetic-Based Optical Fano Resonance,” has been published in Nature Nanotechnology!
January 22, 2013: Our paper R. Fleury, and A. Alù, “Plasmonic Cloaking of Matter Waves,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 87, No. 4, 045423 (6 pages).
January 9, 2013: Our paper N. Liu*, F. Wen*, Y. Zhao*, Y. Wang, P. Nordlander, N. Halas, and A. Alù, “Individual Nanoantennas Loaded with Three-dimensional Optical Nanocircuits,” has been published in Nano Letters, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 142-147.
December 28, 2012: Our paper J. Soric, S. Maci, N. Engheta, and A. Alù, “Omnidirectional Small Antennas Based on ε-Near-Zero Channel Matching,” has been published in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 33-44.
December 20, 2012: Our paper A. Monti, J. Soric, A. Alù, A. Toscano, L. Vegni, and F. Bilotti, “Overcoming Mutual Blockage Between Neighboring Dipole Antennas Using a Low-Profile Patterned Metasurface,” has been published in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 11, pp. 1414-1417.
December 6, 2012: Our invited review paper P. Y. Chen, C. Argyropoulos, and A. Alù, “Enhanced Nonlinearities Using Plasmonic Nanoantennas,” has been published in Nanophotonics, Vol. 1, No. 3-4, pp. 221-233.
December 6, 2012: Our paper Y. Zhao, N. Engheta, and A. Alù, “Effects of Shape and Loading of Optical Nanoantennas on Their Sensitivity and Radiation Properties,” Journal of Optical Society of America B, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 1266-1274, April 27, 2011 has been awarded the 2012 CST University Publication Award!
December 3, 2012: Our invited paper F. Monticone, C. Argyropoulos, and A. Alù, “Cloaking Plasmonic Layers to Tailor the Optical Scattering at the Nnanoscale,” has been published in Scientific Reports, Special Issue for E-MRS 2012, Vol. 2, No. 912
November 21, 2012: Our paper Y. R. Padooru, A. B. Yakovlev, P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “Line-Source Excitation of Realistic Conformal Metasurface Cloaks,” has been published in Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 112, No. 10, 104902 (11 pages).
November 20, 2012: Our review paper P. Y. Chen, J. Soric, and A. Alù, “Invisibility and Cloaking Based on Scattering Cancellation,” has been published in Advanced Optical Materials, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. OP281-OP304. An image from this article has been selected as the inside cover figure.
November 12, 2012: Our paper M. Farhat, P. Y. Chen, S. Guenneau, S. Enoch, and A. Alù, “Frequency-Selective Surface Acoustic Invisibility for Three-Dimensional Immersed Objects,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 86, No. 17, 174303 (8 pages).
November 7, 2012: Our paper K. Q. Le, C. Argyropoulos, N. Mattiucci, G. D’Aguanno, M. J. Bloemer, and A. Alù, “Broadband Brewster Transmission through 2D Metallic Gratings,” has been published in Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 112, No. 9, 094317 (4 pages).
November 1, 2012: Our paper P. Y. Chen, H. Huang, D. Akinwande, and A. Alù, “Distributed Amplifiers Based on Spindt-Type Field Emission Nanotriodes,” has been published in IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 1201-1211. An image from this article was selected for the front cover!
October 28, 2012: Our paper R. Fleury, and A. Alù, “Exotic Properties and Potential Applications of Quantum Metamaterials,” has been published in Applied Physics A, Special Issue for META'12.
October 19, 2012: Our review paper P. Y. Chen, J. Soric, and A. Alù, “Invisibility and Cloaking Based on Scattering Cancellation,” has been published in Advanced Materials, Vol. 24, No. 4.
September 17, 2012: Our paper G. Castaldi, S. Savoia, V. Galdi, A. Alù, and N. Engheta, “Analytical Study of Subwavelength Imaging by Uniaxial Epsilon-Near-Zero Metamaterial Slabs,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 86, No. 11, 115123 (10 pages).
September 7, 2012: Our paper M. D. Guild, M. R. Haberman, A. Alù, “Plasmonic-Type Acoustic Cloak Made of a Bilaminate Shell,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 86, No. 10, 104302 (13 pages).
August 21, 2012: Our paper M. A. Shapiro, S. Trendafilov, Y. Urzhumov, A. Alù, R. J. Temkin, and G. Shvets, "Active Negative-Index Metamaterial Powered by an Electron Beam,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 86, No. 8, 085132 (5 pages).
August 14, 2012: Our paper Y. R. Padooru, A. B. Yakovlev, P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “Analytical Modeling of Conformal Mantle Cloaks for Cylindrical Objects Using Sub-Wavelength Printed and Slotted Arrays,” has been published in Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 112, No. 3, 034907 (13 pages).
July 23, 2012: Our paper Y. Lee, K. Hoshino, A. Alù, J. X. J. Zhang, “Efficient Directional Beaming from Small Apertures Using Surface-Plasmon Diffraction Gratings,” has been published in Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 101, No. 4, 041102 (4 pages).
July 6, 2012: Our paper C. Argyropoulos, P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “Enhanced Nonlinear Effects in Metamaterials and Plasmonics,” has been published in Advanced Electromagnetics, Special Issue for META’12, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 46-51.
June 27, 2012: Our paper C. Argyropoulos, P. Y. Chen, F. Monticone, G. D’Aguanno, and A. Alù, “Nonlinear Plasmonic Cloaks to Realize Giant All-Optical Scattering Switching,” has been published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 108, No. 26, 263905 (5 pages).
June 2, 2012: Congratulations to Matthew D. Guild, who won the 1st prize at the Acoustics 2012 Student Paper Competition in Engineering Acoustics in Hong Kong with the paper M. D. Guild, M. Haberman, and A. Alù, “Achieving a Broadband Plasmonic-Type Acoustic Cloak Using Multilayered, Spherically Isotropic Elastic Shells”.
May 31, 2012: The paper D. Rainwater, A. Kerkhoff, K. Melin, J. C. Soric, G. Moreno, and A. Alù, “Experimental Verification of Three-Dimensional Plasmonic Cloaking in Free-Space,” New Journal of Physics, Vol. 14, 013054 (13 pages) has been included in IoP Select.
May 29, 2012: Our paper Y. Zhao, M. A. Belkin, and A. Alù, “Twisted Optical Metamaterials for Planarized, Ultrathin, Broadband Circular Polarizers,” has been published in Nature Communications, Vol. 3, No. 870!.
May 16, 2012: Our paper N. Mattiucci, G. D’Aguanno, A. Alù, C. Argyropoulos, J. V. Foreman, and M. J. Bloemer, “Taming the Thermal Emissivity of Metals: a Metamaterial Approach,” has been published in Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 100, No. 20, 201109.
May 15, 2012: Our paper N. Akozbek, N. Mattiucci, D. De Ceglia, R. Trimm, A. Alù, G. D’Aguanno, M. A. Vincenti, M. Scalora, and M. J. Bloemer, “Experimental Demonstration of Plasmonic Brewster Angle Extraordinary Transmission through Extreme Subwavelength Slit Arrays in the Microwave,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 85, No. 20, 205430 (4 pages).
Apr. 24, 2012: A video featuring our cloaking research from TACC has been posted on Youtube.
Apr. 13, 2012: Our paper G. D’Aguanno, N. Mattiucci, A. Alù, C. Argyropoulos, J. V. Foreman, and M. J. Bloemer, “Thermal Emission From a Metamaterial Wire Medium Slab,” has been published in Optics Express, Vol. 20, No. 9, pp. 9784-9789.
Mar. 30, 2012: Our paper A. Abass, K. Q. Le, A. Alù, M. Burgelman, and B. Maes, “Dual-Interface Gratings for Broadband Absorption Enhancement in Thin-Film Solar Cells,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 85, No. 11, 115449 (8 pages).
Mar. 28, 2012: Our paper G. D’Aguanno, K. Q. Le, R. Trimm, A. Alù, N. Mattiucci, A. D. Mathias, N. Akozbek, and M. J. Bloemer, “Broadband Metamaterial for Nonresonant Matching of Acoustic Waves,” has been published in Nature Scientific Reports, Vol. 2, No. 340 (5 pages)!
Mar. 23, 2012: Congratulations to J. C. Soric who won the Best Student Paper Award (1st place) at the 2012 Mini-Symposium on Wireless and Microwave Circuits and Systems (WMCS 2012), Waco, TX with the paper J. C. Soric, A. Alù, "Microwave Applications of Epsilon-Near-Zero Metamaterials".
Mar. 23, 2012: Our paper A. Alù, P. A. Belov, and N. Engheta, New J. Phys. 13, 033026 (2011) has been selected for inclusion in the exclusive 'Highlights of 2011' collection of the New Journal of Physics.
Mar. 13, 2012: Our paper Y. Li, A. Alù, and H. Ling, “Investigation of Leaky-Wave Propagation and Radiation in a Metal Cut-Wire Array,” has been published in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 60, No. 3, pp. 1630-1634.
Mar. 8, 2012: Congratulations to Nasim M. Estakhri, who has received the first rank among all 2011 M.Sc. Engineering students at the University of Tehran.
Feb. 21, 2012: Our paper Y. Sun, B. Edwards, A. Alù, and N. Engheta, “Experimental Realization of Optical Lumped Nanocircuits at Infrared Wavelengths,” has been published in Nature Materials, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 208-212!
Feb. 19, 2012: Our invited paper P. Y. Chen, F. Monticone, and A. Alù, “Suppressing the Electromagnetic Scattering with an Helical Mantle Cloak,” has been published in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Special Cluster on Metamaterials, Vol. 10, pp. 1598-1601.
Feb. 10, 2012: Our paper G. Castaldi, V. Galdi, A. Alù, and N. Engheta “Nonlocal Transformation Optics,” has been published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 108, No. 6, 063902.
Jan. 31, 2012: Andrea Alù has received the 2012 SPIE Early Career Achievement Award.
Jan. 31, 2012: Our paper New Journal of Physics 14, 013054 (2012) on 3D cloaking has been downloaded 5093 times in the first 2 days.
Jan. 31, 2012: Our paper C. Argyropoulos, G. D’Aguanno, N. Mattiucci, M. J. Bloemer, and A. Alù, “Matching and Funneling Light at the Plasmonic Brewster Angle," has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 85, No. 2, 024304 (9 pages).
Jan. 27, 2012: Our paper C. Argyropoulos, P. Y. Chen, G. D’Aguanno, N. Engheta, and A. Alù, “Boosting Optical Nonlinearities in Epsilon-Near-Zero Plasmonic Channels,” has been published in Physical Review B, Vol. 85, No. 4, 045129 (5 pages).
Jan. 25, 2012: Our paper on 3D plasmonic cloaking has gathered worldwide attention in the general press, see BBC News, IoP News, Kurzweil, PhysOrg, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, Wired, EnGadget, Science Illustrated. It is the most shared and most read news on BBC News.
Jan. 25, 2012: Our paper D. Rainwater, A. Kerkhoff, K. Melin, J. C. Soric, G. Moreno, and A. Alù, “Experimental Verification of Three-Dimensional Plasmonic Cloaking in Free-Space,” has been published in the New Journal of Physics, Vol. 14, 013054 (13 pages).
Jan. 6, 2012: Congratulations to Pai-Yen Chen, who won the 3rd prize at the USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting Student Paper Competition in Boulder, CO, with the paper P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “Ultra-Broadband Mantle Cloak Using Non-Foster Negative-Impedance Metasurfaces”.

Archived News

Contacts

I hope you can find what you are looking for in these pages, but if you are interested in anything specific that you cannot find, feel free to contact me!