Professor Salah S. A. Obayya of Zewail City of Science and Technology, Egypt

Nanophotonics modelling for 21st century applications is becoming vital. The computational modeling provides a fundamental understanding of the relying physics behind the operation of photonic devices. However, computational modeling is still a challenge as some of the existing modeling techniques fail to capture the correct behavior of nano-photonic devices. In this regard, this talk will introduce an overview of the existing computational modeling tools for analyzing photonic devices, in general, and highlighting their salient features and shortcomings. It is well known that “plasmonics” plays a vital role now in localising the optical field beyond the diffraction limit and hence in integrated optics. Therefore, the talk will focus on plasmonics modeling issues and the failure of the classical electromagnetic solvers to accurately characterize the nano-plasmonic devices. Therefore, new accurate and stable beam propagation method will be introduced for analyzing plasmonics in the classical regime. The rigor of this approach is mainly because of relying on the finite elements method and the twice faster Blocked Schur algorithm which can exactly represent all the wide spectrum of radiation, evanescent, and surface modes produced by the strong discontinuity between metal and its surroundings. Moreover, in merging quantum plasmonic devices, it becomes essential to introduce “Quantum Corrected Model (QCM)” in order to accurately model these devices, and the basics of QCM will be also discussed.

Biography:

Professor Salah S. A. Obayya joined Zewail City of Science and Technology (ZC) in 2012 where he is now Chair Professor and Founding Director of Center for Photonics and Smart Materials (CPSM). He occupied the positions of the Vice Chairman of ZC and Director-General of Research Institutes at the same institution. Prior to Zewail City, he took up several academic posts at Brunel University UK (tenured Associate Professor, 2002), University of Leeds, UK (tenured Professor, 2006) and University of South Wales, UK (tenured Chair Professor, 2008) where he was the Founding Director of Photonics and Broadband Communications (PBC) Research Center and also he was the Director of Postgraduate Programs at the same institution. In May 2006, he has been naturalized as “British” citizen.

He has established an outstanding international reputation in the area of green nanophotonics with focus on the intelligent computational modeling of modern nano-photonic devices enabling technologies needed to realise low-carbon green society. He has published 285 journal publications, mostly in OSA, IEEE and IET/IEE, authored 3 books (Computational Photonics, Wiley 2010 and Computational Liquid Crystal Photonics, Wiley 2016, Computational of Photonic sensors, 2018) both are adopted references for Graduate Programs in Photonics at international Universities such as MIT, Purdue University, Indian Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Mansoura University and Zewail City, and 269 conference papers in international conference in photonics, many of these are invited talks, and keynote lectures, attracted external funding, from both industry and Research Councils, in the region of $ 4.4M, and supervised to successful completion 40 PhD students, over 80 MSc/MRes/MPhil students and 15 postdoctoral research fellows. He led the team that developed one of the world’s best comprehensive numerical packages for the analysis, design and optimization of nano-photonic devices, and subsystems, where a number of “world-first” numerical approaches have been developed. His five key papers introducing his novel numerical package; have been cited more than 400 times. His publications also have been cited more than 4725 times, with an h-index of 37 and i10-index of 135. His numerical package has been widely adopted by both academic and industrial Photonics communities to analyze, design and optimize the performance of a wide range of nano-photonic devices employed for applications in solar cells, optical telecoms, sensing, optical imaging and encryption and other applications.

He has served the International Photonics Society through active contribution to the organization and technical committees of a number of international conferences. Since 2007, he has been an Associate Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Optical and Quantum Electronics, and served as Guest Editor-in-Chief of J Optical and Quantum Electronics (2010), and founding member of Editorial Board of Materials Theory Journal (Springer) and acted as Reviewer for many international Photonics Journals such as IEEE J Lightwave Technology, IEEE Photonics Journal IEEE J Quantum Electronics, IEEE J Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IET Optoelectronics, OSA Optics Express, OSA Optics Letters, and many others. Moreover, he acted as Technical expert and Reviewer for a number of research funding councils and learnt societies such as Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK, Royal Society, UK, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, National Academy of Arts and Sciences, Holland, Science and Technology Development Fund, Egypt, National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), Egypt and others.

Recently, Dr. Obayya was elected as a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), USA, as the first Fellow from Egypt and the Middle East according to the SPIE website, 2022. He was elected as the first Arab and African Fellow of Optical Society of America (OSA) in Sep. 2019, and IEEE Fellow of IEEE Photonics Society, January 2021 and Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2021. He was elected Fellow of African Academy of Science (AAS), 2018, and Chairman of Nanotechnology Group of AAS. Also, He was elected as a board member of Egyptian Society of Optical Science and Applications (ESOSA), elected Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, IET (formerly FIEE), UK, 2010, elected Fellow of The Institute of Physics (IoP), UK, 2010, elected Fellow of The Higher Education Academy, UK, member of Board of Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (Egypt’s National Academy of Science), Member of Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computational Sciences (WIMCS), UK, and Board Member of Applied Computational Electromagnetic Society (ACES). Also, he was elected as Ordinary Member at IOP Optical Group Committee in 2021.

As remarkable recognition of his research achievements, he was the recipient of many national and international awards and recognitions such as ACES Computational Electromagnetics Award, the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society’s Highest Award, 2021, African Union Kwame Nkrumah Continental Award for Scientific Excellence 2020 edition, January 2021, Ahmed Zewail Prize for Scientific Knowledge, for spreading the Science and Technology of Photonics for the wider Egyptian community, CCSS, Egypt, 2021, Order of Science and Arts of the first class, the most prestigious medal awarded by President of Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in the National Science Day, Egypt, 2019, Best Scientific Book, COMSTECH-Awards-2017, 2019, State Appreciation Award, Egypt, 2019, UNESCO Chair, Paris, 2019, Honorary Special Chair Professor of Photonics, University of Nottingham, UK, 2017, for his outstanding world-class research record, elected Senior Associate by Board of Directors, International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy, 2017, for his pivotal role in photonics research and education in Egypt, the Region and Africa, UAE President Khalifa Award for Distinguished Arab Professor in Scientific Research in April 2017, Doctor of Science (DSc) degree in Photonics from City University of London in Jan 2016; a degree awarded only to those who gained international distinction in their own fields, Arab Thought Foundation Award in Scientific Creativity (Lebanon), Dec. 2015; only one award in all fields of Science and Engineering is granted each year for one Arab Scientist, Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) Award in Engineering Sciences Creativity, Sept. 2014; only one award is granted each year for an Egyptian Scientist in Engineering Sciences, Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (Jordan) Award for Arab Scientists in Engineering Sciences, Oct. 2014; only one award is granted each year for one Arab Scientists in Engineering Sciences, State Award of Excellence for Engineering Sciences from the Egyptian State, Sept. 2013; only one scientist is awarded this prestigious award every year, Incentive State Award for Engineering Sciences from the Egyptian State, Sept. 2005, and many others.