Physicist.
He was born in Çorlu / Tekirdağ in 1977. His father was a retired military
officer and his mother was a housewife. Having graduated from Çapa Primary
School, he completed his secondary education in Antalya Anadolu High School and
graduated from Ankara Samanyolu Fen High School. Upon his high school education,
he earned scholarship for Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most prestigious universities of the USA. He did
double major in physics and electronics and sub specialized in economics. He
did post graduate in the same university and earned postgraduate thesis award.
He completed doctorate work in Standford University. He worked as a
professional in Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in the department of computer sciences and electrical engineering.
His interest in technology began with scientific and technical journals such as
“Bilim ve Teknik” and this led him through
many discoveries which brought him a worldwide reputation in the literature of
sciences.
While he was
in high school, Yanık enrolled in the Physic Olympiads team, composed of five
people, first in 1994. He was given a certificate of honor in China and awarded
a bronze medal. In the 1995 Australia Physic Olympiads, he and his brother
Ahmet Ali Yanık earned the bronze medal. He also won Technology Review
Magazine's traditional "World's Top 35 Innovators under age 35" when
he was twenty-seven.
He has
invented a way to stop light pulses on a computer chip. Thus he is known as the person who stopped light pulses at room
temperature. Up to then, atoms were used to stop light pulses and enormous
systems were needed for it. He showed that it would be possible to stop light
pulses on a microchip without converting the motion of photons into the motion
of electrons. Up to then, the scientists were able to stop the light only at ultra
cold temperatures (-270), however Yanık proposed a new strategy to trap them on
a chip at room temperature. Upon this discovery, he started researches on
renewals of nerve cells with “nano surgery”, which
enables surgeons to operate within 1/1,000th of the thickness of a
human hair. Those researches are believed to play a fundamental role in
neuropathology.
This
discovery of Yanık, who receives offers from worldwide known high technology
companies, was subjected in numerous worldwide newspapers and magazines. Yanık
highlights that this system made it ideal for processing data: “With this system it is possible now to
produce new computers we couldn’t even imagine. I want to make it happen. If it
can be put into practice, it will revolutionize data-processing technology. Many
computer companies make billions of dollars costing investments in today’s
technology. Ours is totally different, it is going to be an alternative
technology”.
Yanık has
conducted researchers on physics before but now he also is interested in
biology and he has done studies breaking new grounds. Recently, he has been
working on renewals of nerve cells. Yanık is married to another scientist,
Hatice Altuğ. They were the first place winner of Silicon Valley’ Innovators
Challenge competition with their work on optical transistor. Their work was
regarded as the first step to advanced “nano
surgery”, which enables renewals of cells with future’s quantum computers,
processing data on high speed.
Yanık says that his interest in technology began with the “Bilim ve Teknik” magazines: “While I was in secondary school, my uncle was used to read “Bilim ve Teknik” journals.” He learnt what quantum physic was while he was still a student. Ahmet Yanık, his brother, also does studies on nano technology as another physicist in the family.