Boubacar Kanté

Boubacar Kanté is best known for his invention of scale-invariant lasers named Berkeley Surface Emitting Lasers (BerkSELs) that overcome a six-decade long challenge in wave-physics on how to increase the size of a lasing cavity while maintaining it single mode. He proposed and demonstrated the world first topological laser based on the quantum Hall effect for light, a demonstration selected as one of the top 10 discoveries by Physics World in 2017. He demonstrated the world first bound state in continuum (BIC) laser, where he highlighted the unique scaling of BIC cavities for enabling compact and efficient light sources. He also demonstrated the first single-mode valley-Hall topological laser. His group hold the world record for plasmonic nanosensing (immuno-assay nanosensing) using a scheme he proposed for the implementation of singularities of open systems known as exceptional points. He also holds the world record for the bandwidth and efficiency of planar structured lenses, a structure he named “the Fishnet-Achromatic-Metalens (FAM)”.

Prof. Kanté demonstrated the first non-magnetic metamaterial invisibility cloak. He introduced the notion of symmetry/parity of ring resonators, an idea used to prove that closed rings, previously believed incapable of producing artificial magnetism, can make ultra-broadband negative index in metamaterials.

Boubacar Kanté won the 2024 Bakar prize, he is a 2021 Bakar Fellow and a 2020 Moore Inventor Fellow. He is a senior member of IEEE and Optica (formerly OSA). He received the 2017 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, the 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award, The best undergraduate teacher award from UC San Diego Jacob School of Engineering in 2017, the 2015 Hellman Fellowship, the Richelieu Prize in Sciences from the Chancellery of Paris Universities for the best Ph.D in France in Engineering, Material Science, Physics, Chemistry, Technology in 2010, the Young Scientist Award from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) in Chicago in 2007, the Fellowship for excellence from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2003 for his undergraduate studies, a Research Fellowship from the French Research Ministry for his Ph.D studies.