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NSU Press Release

Norfolk, Va.—Norfolk State University’s College of Science, Engineering and Technology, is holding an open house and lecture featuring internationally renowned metamaterials researcher Professor Sir John B. Pendry of the Imperial College London Wednesday, May 26 at 5:00 p.m. in the L. Douglas Wilder Performing Arts Center. Pendry is a condensed matter theorist and has worked at the Blackett Laboratory in the Imperial College London since 1981. He is considered to be one of the most prominent scholars in the new field of metamaterials. The title of his lecture will be Invisible Cloaks and a Perfect Lens.

The open house special event will provide participants with a tour of the McDemmond Center for Applied Research, including several labs involved in metamaterials research as well as advanced electronic, photonic and magnetic materials research. The event also provides Norfolk State University with the opportunity to give an overview of its metamaterials and advanced materials research and offer targeted group discussions based on specific interests of the participants.

Pendry began his career in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge and spent six years at the Daresbury Laboratory where he headed the theoretical group. He has worked extensively on electronic and structural properties of surfaces developing the theory of low energy diffraction and the theory of electronic surface states. In 1992, he began research in photonic materials and developed some of the first computer codes capable of handling these novel materials. Pendry’s interest in photonic materials led to his present research, which involves the electromagnetic properties of materials where normal response to electromagnetic fields is reversed leading to negative values for the refractive index. He has won numerous awards including the British Vacuum Council Prize and Medal in 1994; the Institute of Physics Dirac Medal and Prize (1996); the EU Decartes Prize for Extending Electromagnetism through Novel Artificial Materials (2005) and the Royal Medal (2006).

The open house and lecture are free and open to the public. For more information, call the NSU Office of Communications and Marketing at 757-823-8373.