Durdu O. Guney

Durdu O. Guney is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Michigan Technological University's College of Engineering. He leads the Güney Research Group focused on the pure and applied science of light, with research spanning metamaterials, plasmonics, quantum technologies, and photonic systems. His work has earned significant recognition including an ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award in 2012 and multiple major research grants.

Guney's research interests center on manipulating light through engineered materials, with particular focus on metamaterials that enable applications previously thought impossible. His group investigates areas including diffraction-unlimited imaging, invisibility cloaking, quantum information processing, photonic crystals, and plasmonic photovoltaics. The research has practical applications in high-resolution imaging, solar energy conversion, quantum computing, and secure communications.

His recent work demonstrates significant advances in loss-free metamaterials without gain medium, stretching negative index metamaterials into the visible spectrum, and developing isotropic photonic metamaterials. The Güney Research Group's publications reveal a consistent focus on overcoming fundamental limitations in metamaterial science, particularly addressing the critical challenge of optical losses in large-volume structures.

• ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award (2012)
• NSF grants for optical metamaterials and plasmonic photovoltaics
• Office of Naval Research grant for diffraction-unlimited flat lens ($375K)
• 2024 Department of Defense MURI Award for single-photon detection at midwave IR ($7.5M)

Professor Guney has successfully advised graduate students including Mehdi Sadatgol, who received the 2015 Matt Wolfe Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award. His research collaborations span multiple institutions including Harvard, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. The Güney Research Group maintains active projects in quantum-resistant encryption, photonic crystal cooling systems, and advancing the fundamental understanding of light-matter interactions at nanoscales.