Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre receives award for his pioneering contributions to experimental physics
Professor Nikolay Zheludev, Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, has been awarded the 2022 Michael Faraday Gold Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics (IOP). The Gold Medal is awarded to those who demonstrate outstanding and sustained contributions to experimental physics. Previous medallists include Robert Williams Wood (1914), Paul Langevin (1917), Albert Abraham Michelson (1921), Niels Bohr (1922), Maurice le Duc de Broglie (1924), J. J. Thomson (1928), Peter Debye (1930), Max Planck (1932) and Max Born (1953).
Professor Zheludev has been recognised for his discoveries and in-depth studies of new phenomena and functionalities in photonic nanostructures and nanostructured matter. This year Professor Zheludev has also received the prestigious Hagler Fellowship from the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M for his role as one of the founding members of the disciplines of nanophotonics and metamaterials that emerged at the crossroads of optics and nanotechnology.
Professor Zheludev began his research career at the International Laser Centre at Moscow State University, and thereafter, since 1991, has worked for the University of Southampton. His career has focused on nonlinear optics, nanophotonics and metamaterials. He was appointed Deputy Director of the Optoelectronic Research Centre (ORC) in 2006 and, in this role, he has contributed to its world-leading reputation. Since 2000, Professor Zheludev, as Principal Investigator, has won 42 grants amounting £60 million. Among them he has twice won prestigious EPSRC Programme Grants and a Portfolio Programme. He is also a recipient of the European Research Council Advanced Grant.
Professor Zheludev is an international leader in his field. He was appointed Director of the Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2012. He was appointed Co-Director of the Photonics Institute in Singapore in 2014, and in 2020, he received the President of Singapore Science and Technology award – the highest accolade for scientific research in the country.
Professor Zheludev is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Institute of Physics, the Optical Society of America (Optica) and the European Physical Society. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Optics for eleven years, and has co-authored over 370 journal papers and 3 books, which include his works on nanophotonics, metamaterials, nonlinear optics, and structured light and matter and toroidal electrodynamics.