Kyriakos Komvopoulos

Kyriakos Komvopoulos is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.  His research is at the interfaces of mechanical and electrical engineering, materials sciences, surface physical chemistry, bioengineering, and biology. His work is characterized by a multidisciplinary nature and the combination of analytical and experimental techniques used to analyze complex surface and interface phenomena. His research is based on the integration of fundamentals from mechanics, materials, surface chemistry, and biology, and spans a broad range of scales, from the mesoscopic down to the atomic and molecular levels.

His research is in: Surface nanoengineering methods, nano-/micro-mechanics and tribology, contact and fracture mechanics, mechanical behavior of bulk materials, deposition, microanalysis, and characterization of single and multi-layer thin films (RF sputtering, ion beam, and filtered cathodic vacuum arc), shape-memory alloys, reliability of nano-/micro-electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS), surface chemistry and nanoscale viscoelastic properties of (bio)polymers, surface treatments for total joint arthroplasty and catheters, surface force microscopy, particle contamination in semiconductor materials, damage of alternating phase-shift optical masks, laser-assisted surface nanomodification and nanostructuring, cell mechanics, plasma-assisted surface functionalization for controlling cell adhesion and proliferation, finite element analysis of thermomechanical surface contact interactions.