Physicist Laurent Bellaiche Appointed to Endowed Professorship

Photo Submitted

Laurent Bellaiche

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Laurent Bellaiche, professor of physics in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has been named to the Twenty-First Century Endowed Professorship in Nanotechnology and Science Education at the University of Arkansas.

The National Science Foundation named Bellaiche a CAREER award winner, a designation given to outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge. Since coming to campus in 1999, he has established a world-class research program in computational condensed matter physics.

Bellaiche has published 81 articles in top scientific journals, given numerous invited lectures and won 20 individual and collaborative grants totaling more than $14 million. Among his publications in the last eight years are 18 in Physical Review Letters, the top journal for publishing physics research of wide importance, as well as two in Nature, the premier journal in the biological and physical sciences.

He is the recipient of the 1999 Ralph Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oakridge Associated Universities. He has won several grants from major agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office and the Department of Energy. He is also a member of the multi-institutional Center for Piezoelectrics by Design sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and the recently renewed Materials Research in Science and Engineering Center of the National Science Foundation.

“One of today’s most creative theoretical scientists in condensed matter theory, Professor Bellaiche is dedicated to uncovering some of the mysteries that are opened through laboratory experiments. He has already become internationally recognized for his expertise in the behaviors of ferroelectric materials in systems such as thin films and quantum dots,” said Donald Bobbitt, dean of Fulbright College.

Bellaiche was among a group of theoretical physicists at the University of Arkansas who recently demonstrated that under applied voltages, thin films composed of technologically important ferroelectric materials form “nanobubbles,” which have the potential to become a way of storing a lot of information in a tiny space.

Bellaiche earned his doctorate from the University of Paris in 1994. From 1994 to 1995 he was a teaching and research associate at the University of Paris, which he left to join the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado as a post-doctoral fellow. Before coming to the university, he worked as a research associate at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

His primary research interests are to reveal the properties of ferroelectric systems at the nanoscale level, in general, and to understand how and why they differ from the corresponding bulks, in particular. He thinks such research can lead to smart cards with higher storage, ultrasound machines with sharper resolutions and sonar-listening devices that can scan greater distances.

The professorship was endowed during the UA Campaign for the Twenty-First Century, which recorded $1.046 billion in gifts and pledges designated toward student and faculty endowments, academic programs, capital improvements and University Libraries when it concluded June 30, 2005.