Dr. Michael Escuti, assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at North Carolina State University, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), effective February 1, 2010. The award is one of the highest honors given by the NSF to young university faculty in science and engineering.

The NSF will provide $400,000 in funding over a five-year period to support Dr. Escuti’s research on Complex Polarization Gratings – Extreme Fresnel Zone Plates, Agile Vortex Beam Tools, and Enhanced Distributed-Feedback.

The overall objective of this research program is to develop liquid crystal (LC) polarization gratings (PGs) for novel photonic elements (Fresnel optics, vortex beam tools, and polymer lasers) with exceptional control over the intensity, direction, orbital angular momentum, and polarization of light.  These anisotropic diffractive elements are composed of bulk nematic LCs, can be made in switchable or polymer materials, and are highly efficient.  The first goal is to develop PG-based Fresnel zone plate optics, with potential for remarkably small f-numbers, unique polarization behavior, and compelling switchable lens devices. The second goal is to investigate efficient and scalable helical (vortex) beam tools, based on forked PGs, with unprecedented ability to generate and measure orbital angular momentum.  The third goal is to employ small-period gratings (sub-micron) to investigate distributed feedback effects, using nematic semiconducting polymers to build organic light-emitting-diodes, and using reactive mesogens doped with fluorescent dyes to build surface-emitting polymer lasers.

The polarization gratings with complex 2D profiles proposed represent a new class of efficient and flexible Fresnel optics with potential for extremely small f-numbers, would lead to novel vortex beam tools that could dramatically impact quantum communication and cryptography, laser-tweezers, lithography microscopy, and could lead to optically pumped polymer lasers with lower thresholds and higher efficiencies.

This program includes graduate/undergraduate course innovation and multidisciplinary training in experiment and theory.  In collaboration with AventWest Children’s Mentoring program and NCSU Science House, Dr. Escuti will host after-school and summer sessions for middle/high-school students involving hands-on engineering projects.

Michael Escuti received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University in 2002, where his research on organic electro-optical materials and their use in photonics and flat-panel displays earned him the Glenn H. Brown Award and the OSA/New Focus Student Award.