Michal Lipson

Michal Lipson (born 1970 in Haifa, Israel) is an Israeli- American physicist who deals with nano- photonics.

Lipson is the daughter of the professor of astrophysics in Sao Paulo Reuven Opher, grew up in Brazil and studied physics at the University of Sao Paulo and at the Technion ( 1992 Bachelor, Master 1994). In 1998, she received her doctorate ( Coupled Exciton - Photon Modes in Semiconductor Optical Microcavities ) at the Technion in Haifa. After that, she was a post- doctoral student at Lionel Kimerling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before they went in 2001 as an Assistant Professor at Cornell University, where she is an associate professor at the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at the University.

Lipson developed micro-and nanostructured photonic devices in silicon technology, that was well developed as a standard material of the electronics, but little has been pulled due to poor optical properties in photonics into consideration. Lipson succeeded in the development of optical and electro - optical components such as switches, amplifiers, and modulators on silicon chips, which were an important step forward in terms of optical computer components. In 2004, she developed slot waveguides, narrow light-conducting structures in silicon. In 2006, she demonstrated amplifier characteristics for light on a silicon chip, light modulation in silicon by light and electro-optic modulators ( first demonstrated in chip - scale silicon) and 2008 an ultrafast optical oscilloscope. In 2006, she demonstrated an all-optical analogue of EIT ( electromagnetically induced transparency ) on a silicon chip. In 2009, she demonstrated mechanical control of silicon components with light and 2009 invisibility effects ( cloaking ) with nanostructured surfaces.

In 2010 she was MacArthur Fellow. She was a Fulbright Fellow in 2007, received the 2006 IBM Faculty Award and was awarded 2004 Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. She is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and received the Blavatnik Award of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Her twin sister is an astrophysicist.