Professor Peter C. Eklund
Departments of Physics and Materials Science & Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-6300 Email:pce3@psu.edu Phone:814-865-5233; Fax:
814-865-9851
Peter C. Eklund was born in New York City, NY in 1945 to Harry Nils Eklund and Vera Clay. His father Nils was born in southern Sweden near Malmo and was educated at Lund University. Nils Eklund obtained two M. Sc. degrees in Engineering (Mechanical and Electrical) from Dresden University, Germany. He evolved with time into Mathematical Physics and Theoretical Engineering. He was Chief Scientist for Lear Inc. (aerospace) for the last twenty-five years of his career, working on automatic flight control, acoustics, and north-seeking gyros. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Nils Eklund’s career was the analysis and design of the first "automatic" pilot. Lear Inc. received the Collier Trophy for the most significant achievement in aviation for 1954. Prof. Eklund's mother, Vera Clay was born in New Jersey and worked early on at the New York Eye Institute, before moving to California with Nils. They were married over fifty years and are now both deceased.
Professor Eklund is married to Karen Louise Mueller; they have two children Gregory Paul Eklund and Bryan Alan Eklund. Gregory is a charter fishing boat captain in the Florida Keys; Bryan is a musician and songwriter in Boulder, Colorado. Karen Eklund is currently employed as an instructor in Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education at Penn State; she also is working on a statewide project for the development of a "Math-Science Partnership" which will involve Penn State and the K-12 teachers.
Another application of Classical Physics!
Experiments in Fluid Dynamics: On class 5 rapids, Gauley River, West Virginia, 2002. Prof. Eklund sits in front of the experimentalist with the orange helmet.
Professor Eklund grew up
in sunny Southern California near UCLA.
He attended University High School in Los Angeles. He then was admitted to the University of California at
Berkeley, enrolling first in a pre-medicine curriculum, but then switched
to, and was graduated in, Physics. He
then worked for Lockheed Missile and Space Co. in Sunnyvale, CA as an
Associate Engineer. After one
year at Lockheed (1968), he left for graduate studies at Purdue University in the
Physics Department. There he
carried out his Ph.D. research in Solid State Physics under Professor J.M.
Honig (Solid State Chemistry) and Prof. L.L van Zandt (Theoretical Solid
State Physics). At Purdue,
his Ph.D. research involved the high temperature synthesis of crystalline
transition metal oxides, and the study of their electrical transport
properties, including tunneling through Schottky barriers into
semiconducting, narrow-band oxides. His
post-doctoral training was obtained at MIT under the guidance of Prof.
Mildred S. Dresselhaus and Dr. G. Dresselhaus.
During his two years at MIT, he worked on Raman Scattering and
Optical Reflectance of synthetic
metals referred to as Graphite Intercalation Compounds (or GICs—with
suitable chemical treatment graphite can be modified to exhibit an
electrical conductivity that exceeds even that of copper). He was also
involved in research on the electrical transport properties of
Mott-Hubbard insulators (NiS2), magneto-reflection of graphite,
and magneto-catalysis; the emphasis of his research at MIT was on GICs.
In 1977 Prof. Eklund joined the University of Kentucky (Lexington) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics; he became a Full Professor in 1986. He was awarded the prestigious University of Kentucky Research Professorship in 1998 for his contributions to graduate education and research discoveries in carbon materials. The next year (1999) he left the University of Kentucky to join the Physics Department at Penn State University, where he is currently employed. In 2002, he was also invited to join the faculty of the department of Materials Science and Engineering. He has had the pleasure of guiding over 16 Ph.D. thesis students since 1983. Most of his students are still employed in Industrial R&D, or have University faculty positions throughout the United States.
Professor Eklund is a co-author of the first comprehensive research monograph on fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, i.e., The Science of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes, AcademicPress (1996) written with Mildred and Gene Dresselhaus, and with whom he has enjoyed a close working relationship since 1975. He is a co-editor (with former student Prof. A.M. Rao) of the research monograph Fullerne Polymers and Fullerene Polymer Composites, Springer-Verlag (2000).
Prof. Eklund’s research group is known for application of quantitative reflectance spectroscopy to study graphite intercalation compounds and their the staging phenomena. They separated the contributions from free carrier and interband transitions to the optical dielectric function and provided values for the Fermi energy (and charge transfer), as well as values for all the important tight binding energy band parameters in prototype acceptor and donor compounds. This sort of research weas continued in several high Tc copper oxide superconductors. His group has been internationally recognized for the discovery of the photopolymerization of fullerenes which was later confirmed by NMR. Using Raman spectroscopy, they demonstrated the first charge-transfer-doping of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes.
Polybuckyballs - Sections of simulated infinite C60 polymer chains. The zigzag chain at right has a lower calculated energy than the linear chain on the left. From Fullerene Polymers and Fullerene Polymer Composites. Click HERE to read article.
His group produced the first definitive study that identified the phonons responsible for superconductivity in alkali-metal doped fullerene compounds with Tc’s as high as 30 K. His group, with collaborators at MIT, were the first to demonstrate the utility of Vibrational Spectroscopy in characterizing the fundamental properties of several classes of carbon materials, including fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. Eklund has, with co-workers, published several papers in Science and Nature, as well as over 250 manuscripts in respected refereed journals; he has co-authored more than 20 chapters in Research Monographs. With co-inventors, he has three US Patents and 5 US patents pending. He has been active in Topical Conference Organization and has been an invited speaker in numerous International Symposia. He is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Carbon Society, the Materials Research Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for his research into the science and optical properties of various solid state forms of carbon.
GaP nanowire (d~20 nm) produced by VLS growth from a Au nanoparticle. Inset: SAD pattern of the nanowire
AFM image of isolated bundles of purified carbon nanotubes (circles indicate number of tubes in bundle)
Most recently he, and his research group at Penn State, have been interested in the synthesis and development of growth models for carbon nanotubes and crystalline nanowires. His group is deeply involved in exploring the physical and chemical properties of these quantum filaments. Some of their current experiments are carried out on one isolated nanotube (or nanowire), i.e., molecular electronics. Currently, they are developing lithographic procedures for making electrical contacts to individual nanotubes and nanowires. His group has worked recently on the CVD and pulsed laser vaporization (PLV) synthesis of semiconducting nanowires; electric arc, CVD and PLV growth of carbon nanotubes, plus various schemes for chemical purification of these materials. They have recently investigated hydrogen storage in carbon nanotubes, carbon nanotubes as thermoelectric chemical sensors, and phonon confinement in nanotubes and small diameter semiconducting nanowires.
Professor Eklund has participated in the initialization and early development of three small R&D businesses involving (1) computer-generated camouflage patterns that can be printed on textiles (PhotoStealth, Inc.), (2) laser-driven synthesis of nanoparticles and coatings (ICMR, Inc.), and (3) the large-scale production of bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes (CarboLex, Inc.). ICMR moved from Lexington, KY to Silicon Valley, and with venture capital ICMR evolved into Nanogram, Inc. located in Fremont CA; Nanogram was recently reorganized as NeoPhotonics, Inc. Prof. Eklund is a co-founder of Nanogram/NeoPhotonics. Both CarboLex and NeoPhotonics are still actively engaged in the R&D of new nano-materials.
Prof. Eklund currently resides with his wife Karen and two loyal Labrador retrievers in Boalsburg, PA.