Materials Science and Engineering
A Department of the School of Engineering and Applied Science
Featured Faculty Research
Research in our department extends across campus through interdisciplinary and inter-school collaborations. Our faculty are at the cutting edge of Materials Science research. See below for some recent research highlights.
Penn Engineers Develop First Tunable, Chip-based ‘Vortex Microlaser’ and Detector, Encode Information in Twisting Beams of Light
Two studies led by Liang Feng and Ritesh Agarwal from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science have shown a system that can manipulate and detect a property known as the orbital angular momentum, or OAM, of light. Critically, they are the first to do so on small semiconductor chips and with enough precision that it can be used as a medium for transmitting information.
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