People > Yoel Fink > Biographical Background

Biographical Background

Professor Yoel Fink is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He attended the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) and received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering in 1994, followed by a B.A. in Physics in 1995. While there, he received the Hershel Rich Technion Innovation Award (1994) for development of a flow-through controlled-environment vitrification system. In 2000, he received his Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT and joined the MIT faculty as Assistant Professor. In 2004, he was promoted to Thomas B. King Associate Professor of Materials Science.

Professor Fink's doctoral research examined the theory and synthesis of block copolymer self-assembled photonic band gap materials, as well as the theory and synthesis of dielectric omnidirectional reflectors (the "perfect mirror"). His work generated some fifteen patent applications and a dozen publications. Fink is also a co-founder and president of OmniGuide Communications, a startup company which developed out of his doctoral work. In 1999, MIT's Technology Review named him one fo the top 100 young innovators under the age of 35. In 2004, Professor Fink won the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research for his pioneering contributions and ingenuity in the creative design and development of photonic materials and devices.

His current interests have focused on basic optical material synthesis, novel bandgap structures development, low cost processing, optical characterization and simulation and theory.