Pearsall Distinguished Lecture: Soft Meta-Materials: Self-Gauged Assembly, Non-Equilibrium Matters, and 3D Super-Resolution Imaging

Metamaterials are artificial composite structures that lead to many exciting applications beyond nature such as imaging objects below the diffraction limit, optical clocking, sensing and communications. Traditional metamaterials are considered as "hard" materials that structural units cannot be tailored after their formation which limits their material responses and applications. It remains a critical and unsolved problem to design "soft metamaterials" that can spontaneously self-adapt to changes in the source wavelength or the environment.

Xiang Zhang is the inaugural Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chaired Professor at UC Berkeley and the Director of Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC). He also served as the Director of Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). In 2008, Professor Zhang's research has been selected by Time Magazine as one of "Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Year" and "50 Best Inventions of the Year", Discover Magazine's "Top 100 Science Stories" in 2007, and R&D Magazine's top 25 the Most Innovative Products of 2006. His research was frequently featured by international media including BBC, CNN, ABC, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Reception immediately following lecture.