news

Kippelen Named Optical Society of America Fellow

Primary tabs

Professor Bernard Kippelen from Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been elevated to the rank of Fellow in the Optical Society of America (OSA). One of 58 OSA members comprising the Society's class of 2007 Fellows, Kippelen is being honored for his contributions to organic nonlinear optical materials and optoelectronic devices.

"I am truly honored to have been named an OSA Fellow by my peers," said Kippelen. "Being recognized by those colleagues who served as my role models means a lot to me, and I want to share this recognition with all the mentors, students, scientists, and collaborators with whom I have worked over the years and who shared with me the desire to make new discoveries in the field of optics.

"With this OSA honor, I have a new responsibility to earn the trust that has been given to me by continuing to generate new scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations. I will also endeavor to serve as a role model for younger students and scientists, encouraging them to live their passions."

Kippelen has played a pioneering role in the development of photorefractive polymers for real-time holographic applications, a field that began in the early 1990s. He also has made significant contributions to the development of organic compounds for transport and organic light-emitting devices (OLEDS).

Kippelen's recent work has focused on developing flexible organic photovoltaic cells for power generation, and he has demonstrated high-efficiency cells based on polycrystalline materials. Other current research interests include creating low-cost printed electronics for radio frequency identification (RFID), developing organic field-effect transistors and circuits, and using liquid crystals for switchable electro-active diffractive lenses.

A prolific and frequently cited researcher, Kippelen holds 10 patents and has co-authored six conference proceedings, 11 book chapters, and more than 100 refereed journal articles. He has acted as chair and co-chair of numerous international conferences on organic optoelectronic materials and devices, and he regularly gives invited talks at international conferences and seminars worldwide. He is the recipient of both a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2000) and a 3M Corporation Young Faculty Award (2000).

At Tech, Kippelen is the ECE Optics and Photonics group chair as well as associate director of Tech's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. He is also an associate director of research for Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research, a Science and Technology Center funded by the NSF. A senior member of the IEEE, Kippelen serves on the IEEE EDS Organic Electronics Committee. In addition to his scholarly activities, he has co-founded several spin-off companies, including NP Photonics, Inc., and LumoFlex, LLC.

Kippelen earned a maitrise in solid-state physics in 1985 and a Ph.D. in nonlinear optics in 1990, both from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. Before coming to Tech in 2003, he performed research at the Institute of Physics in Strasbourg and was a faculty member at the University of Arizona.

"Becoming a Fellow of a distinguished professional society such as OSA was inconceivable to me when I began studying optics as an undergraduate student," said Kippelen. "It was certainly not in my thoughts when I had to overcome a long series of failed experiments during my graduate studies and in my early days as a postdoctoral researcher. This honor reminds me that hard work, tenacity, and passion bring reward some day."

Groups

Status

  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Lisa Grovenstein
  • Created:04/09/2007
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016