Leading physicists gather in London to celebrate the career of Professor Sir John Pendry

Top scientists to attend the Pendryfest<em> - News</em>

Imperial College London Media Invitation
'Pendryfest' 29 – 30 September 2008.

Cloaking devices, perfect lenses and super high speed computer chips of the future will be among topics under discussion at a special two-day symposium next week in celebration of the career of Imperial College London's Professor Sir John Pendry, whose theoretical work recently led to prototype invisibility 'cloaking' devices.

Journalists are invited to attend the Pendryfest on Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 September 2008, which will feature talks by eminent researchers from around the world in the three principal areas of physics to which Sir John has made a seminal contribution: metamaterials and photonics, surface science, and disordered systems and localisation.

 

Speakers will include Professor David R Smith of Duke University, who has collaborated closely with Sir John on his pioneering work in metamaterials and cloaking devices. Professor Smith and colleagues used Sir John's theoretical description of metamaterials – exotic artificial composite materials which 'grab' light and make it flow smoothly round an object instead of striking it – to produce the first working prototype cloaking device, which rendered objects invisible to microwaves, in 2006.

Professor Xiang Zhang from the University of California at Berkeley will talk about Sir John's revolutionary theory of the perfect lens, which overturns conventional laws of physics governing the smallest object you can see with light. Prior to Sir John's work, using light to image objects smaller than the wavelength of light, which is around 300 – 500 nanometres long, was considered impossible. Professor Zhang's talk will cover how he and colleagues are working on translating Sir John's theory into a workable device which uses light to produce images of smaller objects than ever before.

Other speakers at the symposium include renowned researchers working in an emerging field of physics known as plasmonics, which aims to one day produce computer chips that use light to transmit information along the surfaces of wires, rather than using electrons that travel through the interiors of wires, as is the case with conventional computers.

The prototype 'cloaking' device based on Sir John's theories

Physicists investigating how waves are transmitted through disordered random media, like seismic waves travelling through the Earth or the mating calls of whales through the oceans, will also talk about current research in their field, and how Sir John has contributed to it. Surface science experts will talk about nanotechnology developments and creating nanoscale structures such as quantum dots and nanowires on semiconducting and metallic surfaces.

The four sessions of the symposium will be chaired by Sir David King FRS, former chief scientific advisor to the government, Professor John Inglesfield of the University of Cardiff, Professor Will Stewart FREng from UCL, and Professor Sir Peter Knight FRS, Senior Principal of Imperial College London.

Sir John said: "A career in science is as much about people as about the science itself so it will be a pleasure to see so many friends, old and new, contributing to this celebration."

Professor Adrian Sutton, Sir John's colleague in Imperial's Department of Physics, who has organised the Pendryfest said: "There are very few who can match the enormous breadth and depth of John Pendry's impact on physics. With so many world-leading scientists coming to the Fest it promises to be a most memorable event and a fitting tribute to one of the most outstanding physicists of our time."

The Pendryfest takes place on Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 September 2008 in the Blackett Laboratory, Department of Physics, Imperial College London.

Journalists can attend the Pendryfest for free, but must register in advance by contacting Danielle Reeves in the Imperial Press Office on Danielle.reeves@imperial.ac.uk

A full programme is available on request.

For more information go to: Pendryfest

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For more information or for a full list of speakers for the Pendryfest, please contact:

Danielle Reeves, Imperial College London press office
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 2198
Out-of-hours duty press office: +44 (0)7803 886248
Email: Danielle.reeves@imperial.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

1. About Sir John Pendry

John Pendry is a condensed matter theorist. He has worked at the Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, since 1981. He began his career in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, followed by six years at the Daresbury Laboratory where he headed the theoretical group. He has worked extensively on electronic and structural properties of surfaces developing the theory of low energy diffraction and of electronic surface states. Another interest is transport in disordered systems where he produced a complete theory of the statistics of transport in one dimensional systems.

In 1992 he turned his attention to photonic materials and developed some of the first computer codes capable of handling these novel materials. This interest led to his present research which concerns the remarkable electromagnetic properties of materials where the normal response to electromagnetic fields is reversed leading to negative values for the refractive index. This innocent description hides a wealth of fascinating complications. In collaboration with scientists at The Marconi Company he designed a series of 'metamaterials' whose properties owed more to their micro-structure than to the constituent materials. These made accessible completely novel materials with properties not found in nature. Successively metamaterials with negative electrical permittivity, then with negative magnetic permeability were designed and constructed.

These designs were subsequently the basis for the first material with a negative refractive index, a property predicted 40 years ago by a Russian scientist, but unrealised because of the absence of suitable materials. He went on to explore the surface excitations of the new negative materials and showed that these were part of the surface plasmon excitations familiar in metals. This project culminated in the proposal for a 'perfect lens' whose resolution is unlimited by wavelength. These concepts have stimulated further theoretical investigations and many experiments which have confirmed the predicted properties. The simplicity of the new concepts together with their radical consequences have caught the imagination of the world's media generating much positive publicity for science in general.

For more information see: Sir John's professional web page (PWP) and at http://www.cmth.ph.ic.ac.uk/photonics/Newphotonics/

2. About Imperial College London

Imperial College London - rated the world's fifth best university in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings - is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 12,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

Website: www.imperial.ac.uk