02/11/2025
Sabancı University's Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences hosted Dr. Koray Aydın, who has accomplished internationally pioneering research in the field of nanophotonic materials.
At the seminar titled "Engineering Nanophotonic Materials for Imaging, Optical Computing, and Quantum Technologies," Dr. Koray Aydın shared his current work on innovative designs, production techniques, and future application areas aimed at enhancing light-matter interaction. The seminar was attended by Sabancı University President Prof. Dr. Yusuf Leblebici and Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Dean Erkay Savaş, as well as academics and students.
Redefining the limits of light
During the seminar, Dr. Koray Aydın emphasized that the effort to control the wave nature of light, which is at the core of nanophotonic research, enables the development of smaller, more efficient, and more integrated optical systems.
In his presentation, Dr. Koray Aydın described a multidisciplinary research approach that extends from the design of resonators that enhance the interaction between light and matter to the advanced manufacturing processes that make these structures possible.
"Our goal is to develop compact and sustainable devices that can manipulate the behavior of photons at the nanoscale," Dr. Aydın said, noting that these studies could revolutionize many areas in the future, including information technologies, biomedical imaging, and energy efficiency.
Next-generation metasurfaces
During the seminar, Dr. Koray Aydın also touched on ultrathin and lightweight metasurface technologies that could replace classical optical components (such as lenses, mirrors, and prisms). These structures control the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light at the surface plane, paving the way for flat, integrated, and energy-efficient optical systems. Dr. Aydın emphasized that advances in this field will facilitate the integration of electronic and photonic systems, providing more sustainable solutions.
Research Shedding Light on the Future
At the end of the seminar, Dr. Koray Aydın stated that research in nanophotonics and quantum materials is of great importance not only for its scientific but also societal impact: “Every new step allows us to better understand light and make it available to humanity. Nanophotonics is the key to the future of smaller, smarter, and more accessible technologies.”
Dr. Koray Aydın
Dr. Koray Aydın is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Applied Physics Graduate Program, directing the Metamaterials and Nanophotonic Devices Laboratory. He received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees in Physics from Bilkent University in 2002 and 2008, respectively. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Prof. Harry Atwater at the California Institute of Technology from 2008 to 2010, and as a research scientist from 2010 to 2011. His research interests span several cross-cutting areas within nanophotonics, including metamaterials and metadevices, plasmonics, inverse design and machine learning-assisted nanophotonic design, 2D materials, phase change materials, DNA-fused and 3D-printed nanophotonic materials. Dr. Aydın was awarded the prestigious 2017 ONR Young Researcher Program Award. In 2019, he was selected as Türkiye's Most Outstanding Young Person in the field of scientific and technological development. His work integrates physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering, with applications ranging from imaging and computing to quantum information.
