Research Bio

Kyriakos Komvopoulos is Distinguished Professor 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 current research is in surface nanostructuring/patterning methods, tribology, multiscale-roughness of fractal surfaces, analytical and finite element analysis of thermomechanical surface contact problems, mechanical behavior and structure characterization of single and multi-layer thin films grown by RF sputtering and filtered cathodic vacuum arc methods, mechanics and materials aspects of hard-disk drives, reliability of nano-/micro-electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS), plasma-assisted surface functionalization for cell adhesion and proliferation control, scaffolds for tissue engineering.

Research Expertise and Interest

contact mechanics, fracture and fatigue of engineering materials, finite element modeling of surface contact and machining, thin-film processing and characterization, adhesion and fatigue of MEMS devices, plasma-assisted surface functionalization of biomaterials, surface patterning for cell adhesion and growth control, mechanics & tribology of magnetic recording devices, microfibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering, tribology and mechanics of artificial joints, mechanical metamaterials