Grover Swartzlander
American optical physicist
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Grover A. Swartzlander Jr. is an American physics professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He is known for research on optical vortices, the optical vortex coronagraph, optical lift, and diffractive solar sails. He is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America) and served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Optical Society of America B for six years.[1]
Purdue University (M.S.)
Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.)
Optical vortex coronagraph
Optical lift
Diffractive solar sails
Grover A. Swartzlander Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Drexel University (B.S.) Purdue University (M.S.) Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | Optical vortex solitons Optical vortex coronagraph Optical lift Diffractive solar sails |
| Awards | Fellow, Optica |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Optics, photonics, nonlinear optics |
| Institutions | Rochester Institute of Technology Worcester Polytechnic Institute University of Arizona Naval Research Laboratory |
Education and early career
Swartzlander received his B.S. in physics from Drexel University in 1982, his M.S. in physics and electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1985, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1990.[1] Following his doctorate, he held an Office of Naval Research postdoctoral fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory.[1] He subsequently held faculty positions at the University of Arizona and Worcester Polytechnic Institute before joining RIT in 2008.[1]
Research
Optical vortex solitons
In 1992, while at the Naval Research Laboratory, Swartzlander and C. T. Law reported the experimental observation of optical vortex solitons in a Kerr nonlinear medium, published in Physical Review Letters.[2] These stationary, stable dark-core structures—located at the axis of a helical phase ramp—demonstrated that vortices in laser beams could propagate without changing size in a nonlinear medium, analogous to vortices in superfluids.[2] This work helped establish optical vortices as a major area of study in nonlinear optics.[3]
Optical vortex coronagraph
In 2001, Swartzlander proposed using the dark core of an optical vortex as a spatial filter to detect faint signals hidden in the glare of bright coherent sources, suggesting applications in exoplanet detection.[4] In 2005, he and colleagues described the optical vortex coronagraph, a method for blocking starlight to enable imaging of nearby dim exoplanets by using a vortex phase mask.[5] The technique was experimentally verified in 2006[6] and astronomically demonstrated on a telescope in 2008.[7] The concept of vortex coronagraphy has since been widely adopted, with vortex-based instruments deployed at the Keck Observatory, the Very Large Telescope, and the Subaru Telescope for direct imaging of exoplanets and circumstellar disks.[8][9]
Optical lift
In 2011, Swartzlander and colleagues demonstrated an optical analogue of aerodynamic lift, published in Nature Photonics.[10] The team showed that a micrometer-scale transparent "lightfoil" with a cambered shape—analogous to an airfoil—experiences a transverse lift force when placed in a uniform beam of light, without requiring the intensity gradient used in optical tweezers.[10] The research was covered by NPR's All Things Considered, The Economist, Scientific American, and other outlets.[1][11]
Diffractive solar sails
Swartzlander has proposed replacing conventional reflective solar sails with diffractive metafilm sails that use thin optical metamaterials to steer diffracted sunlight for spacecraft propulsion.[12] He received NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I funding in 2018 and Phase II funding in 2019 to develop this concept.[13] The project subsequently received $2 million in NIAC Phase III funding in 2022, led by his former student Amber Dubill of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, with Swartzlander continuing as co-investigator.[14][15] The diffractive sail concept aims to enable missions not practical with reflective sails, such as placing a constellation of spacecraft into polar orbits around the Sun for heliophysics observations.[16]
Honors and awards
- Fellow, Optical Society of America (Optica)[1]
- Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the Optical Society of America B (six-year term)[1]