World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
John D. Joannopoulos

John D. Joannopoulos

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Best Scientists
2025
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Materials Science
USA
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Best Scientists

D-Index
173
Citations
160835
World Ranking
758
National Ranking
464

Materials Science

D-Index
152
Citations
136121
World Ranking
139
National Ranking
58

Physics

D-Index
176
Citations
168207
World Ranking
121
National Ranking
81

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Materials Science in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Best Scientists Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Materials Science in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Physics in United States Leader Award
  • 2022 - Research.com Materials Science in United States Leader Award
  • 2015 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2009 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences
  • 2002 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • 1997 - David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics
  • 1983 - Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) Citation For outstanding contributions to research and to developing young theorists in condensed matter physics
  • 1981 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • 1976 - Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Overview

John D. Joannopoulos is affiliated with MIT in the United States. Their research focuses primarily on Physics and Astronomy, alongside significant work in Engineering.

The main subfields of their study include Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Artificial Intelligence; and Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials.

Topics frequently covered in their work are Photonic and Optical Devices, Photonic Crystals and Applications, Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications, Topological Materials and Phenomena, Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing, Quantum Information and Cryptography, and Mechanical and Optical Resonators.

Recent publications by John D. Joannopoulos span various high-impact journals and include:

  • Single fibre enables acoustic fabrics via nanometre-scale vibrations, 2022, Nature
  • A framework for scintillation in nanophotonics, 2022, Science
  • Digital electronics in fibres enable fabric-based machine-learning inference, 2021, Nature Communications
  • Accelerating recurrent Ising machines in photonic integrated circuits, 2020, Optica
  • 100 m Long Thermally Drawn Supercapacitor Fibers with Applications to 3D Printing and Textiles, 2020, Advanced Materials

They have frequently collaborated with other researchers. Their most common co-authors include Marin Soljačić, Nicholas Rivera, Charles Roques-Carmes, Steven E. Kooi, and Yi Yang.

The venues where their work is often published include arXiv (Cornell University), Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Nature Communications, Nature, and Physical Review B.

Throughout their career, John D. Joannopoulos has been recognized with several awards and honors:

  • Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2015
  • Member of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009
  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2002
  • David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics, 1997
  • Fellow of American Physical Society (APS), 1983 (Citation for outstanding contributions to research and to developing young theorists in condensed matter physics)
  • Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1981
  • Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 1976

Best Publications

  • Photonic Crystals: Molding the Flow of Light

    John D. Joannopoulos;Steven G. Johnson;Joshua N. Winn;Robert D. Meade

  • Iterative minimization techniques for ab initio total-energy calculations: molecular dynamics and conjugate gradients

    M. C. Payne;M. P. Teter;D. C. Allan;T. A. Arias

  • Wireless Power Transfer via Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonances

    André Kurs;Aristeidis Karalis;Robert Moffatt;J. D. Joannopoulos

  • Photonic crystals: putting a new twist on light

    J. D. Joannopoulos;Pierre R. Villeneuve;Shanhui Fan

  • Block-iterative frequency-domain methods for Maxwell’s equations in a planewave basis

    Steven G. Johnson;John D. Joannopoulos

  • Topological Photonics

    Tomoki Ozawa;Hannah M. Price;Alberto Amo;Nathan Goldman

  • Observation of unidirectional backscattering-immune topological electromagnetic states

    Zheng Wang;Yidong Chong;Yidong Chong;John D. Joannopoulos;Marin Soljacic

  • Meep: A flexible free-software package for electromagnetic simulations by the FDTD method

    Ardavan F. Oskooi;David Roundy;Mihai Ibanescu;Peter Bermel

  • Bound states in the continuum

    Chia Wei Hsu;Bo Zhen;Bo Zhen;A. Douglas Stone;John D. Joannopoulos

  • High Transmission through Sharp Bends in Photonic Crystal Waveguides.

    Attila Mekis;J. C. Chen;I. Kurland;Shanhui Fan

  • Efficient wireless non-radiative mid-range energy transfer

    Aristeidis Karalis;J.D. Joannopoulos;Marin Soljačić

  • A Dielectric Omnidirectional Reflector

    Yoel Fink;Joshua N. Winn;Shanhui Fan;Chiping Chen

  • Temporal coupled-mode theory for the Fano resonance in optical resonators

    Shanhui Fan;Wonjoo Suh;J. D. Joannopoulos

  • Analysis of guided resonances in photonic crystal slabs

    Shanhui Fan;J. D. Joannopoulos

  • Ab initio study of lithium intercalation in metal oxides and metal dichalcogenides

    Mehmet Aydinol;Adrian Kohan;Gerbrand Ceder;Kang Cho

  • Guided modes in photonic crystal slabs

    Steven G. Johnson;Shanhui Fan;Pierre R. Villeneuve;J. D. Joannopoulos

  • Reflection-free one-way edge modes in a gyromagnetic photonic crystal.

    Zheng Wang;Yidong Chong;John D. Joannopoulos;Marin Soljačić

  • Observation of trapped light within the radiation continuum

    Chia Wei Hsu;Bo Zhen;Jeongwon Lee;Song-Liang Chua

  • Photonic-bandgap microcavities in optical waveguides

    J. S. Foresi;P. R. Villeneuve;J. Ferrera;E. R. Thoen

  • Donor and acceptor modes in photonic band structure.

    E Yablonovitch;TJ Gmitter;RD Meade;AM Rappe

  • All-angle negative refraction without negative effective index

    Chiyan Luo;Steven G. Johnson;J. D. Joannopoulos;J. B. Pendry

  • Optimized pseudopotentials.

    Unknown

Frequent Co-Authors

Shanhui Fan
Shanhui Fan Stanford University
Elefterios Lidorikis
Elefterios Lidorikis University of Ioannina
Kyeongjae Cho
Kyeongjae Cho The University of Texas at Dallas
Evan J. Reed
Evan J. Reed Stanford University

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