Jason Valentine Wins Chancellor’s Research Award
Jason Valentine, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was one of five Vanderbilt professors who won a Chancellor’s Award for Research this week.
The award recognizes excellence in works published or presented in the last three calendar years. Recipients also received $2,000 and an engraved pewter julep cup.
Valentine was honored for work published in Nano Letters in which he made a major advance in the design of optical metamaterials.
His research group is developing optical metamaterials, which are nanostructured composites that allow engineering of a wide range of properties. Nanoscale structuring supports creation and investigation of properties that don’t exist in nature, such as a negative and zero-index of refraction. Applications include ultra-compact optical elements, efficient and low power optoelectronics, and hot electron-based energy conversion devices.