Aaswath Raman
aaswath.bsky.social
Aaswath Raman
@aaswath.bsky.social
Associate Prof @UCLA in Materials Science and Engineering. http://www.aaswathraman.com
Question for the photonics community 💡: An editor at a journal is rejecting our manuscript because of the CLEO abstract (the 2-page summary required for CLEO) submitted by my student earlier. In their view, this counts as the result being published. This sound a bit crazy to me, is this a new rule?
October 31, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Fifty years ago, Carol Baker proposed vaccinating pregnant women to save babies from a deadly microbe. Now, the idea is nearing fruition. https://scim.ag/4ptSSMl
Vaccine given during pregnancy could protect babies from an invisible killer
Shots target group B streptococcus, a little-known microbe that can cause stillbirths and life-threatening disease in infants
scim.ag
September 21, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Here's a poem by one of the old Chinese scholar bureaucrats that I think captures a certain Vibe very well
July 24, 2025 at 2:12 PM
New preprint! Turns out that there is a thermal penalty to harvesting longer wavelength solar photons when your operating temperature is constrained by your radiating surface area (ie: in space). arxiv.org/abs/2506.16588
The Thermal Cost of Harvesting the Solar Infrared Tail in Space-Based Photovoltaics
Space applications require the highest performing photovoltaic devices. Typically these are multi-junction devices that are capable of converting a larger bandwidth of the solar spectrum. However, the...
arxiv.org
June 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
We have a new preprint on arXiv, "Passive radiative cooling using temperature-dependent emissivity can sometimes outperform static emitters", led by Yeonghoon Jin

We show how one can design a thermal emitter with temperature-dependent emissivity to optimize radiative-cooling performance 💡🧪
Passive radiative cooling using temperature-dependent emissivity can sometimes outperform static emitters
In passive sky-facing radiative cooling, wavelength-selective thermal emitters in the atmospheric transparency window of 8-13 $μ$m can reach lower temperatures compared to broadband emitters, but broa...
arxiv.org
June 19, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
John Tyler became US president in 1841.

His youngest grandson just died this past weekend.

www.richmonder.org/harrison-ruf...
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, grandson of 10th U.S. president and longtime Richmonder, dies at 96
The Richmond resident, preservationist and chemical engineer, for whom William & Mary’s history department is named, also had the distinction of being the grandson of a man who became U.S. president i...
www.richmonder.org
May 28, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
How can we keep people safe outdoors in extreme heat? In a paper out today in @naturesustain.bsky.social we demonstrate that active radiant cooling and IR-reflective walls can deliver thermal comfort and be accepted by members of heat-vulnerable communities. rdcu.be/ekMzN
Efficient outdoor thermal comfort via radiant cooling and infrared-reflective walls
Nature Sustainability - Active radiant cooling is an emerging technology that consumes less energy than traditional air conditioning. This work demonstrates an outdoor radiant cooling structure...
rdcu.be
May 5, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Why Lawrence of Arabia Still Looks Like a Billion Bucks. “I got to see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen last fall and it was stunning — the colors, the amount of detail, the cinematography in general.” [kottke.org]
Why Lawrence of Arabia Still Looks Like a Billion Bucks
Even after 60+ years, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best-looking films out there; this video explores why. I got to see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen last fall and it was stunning — the colors, the amount of de
kottke.org
May 1, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
is ds9 called terok nor again
April 26, 2025 at 4:31 PM
It is notable that Steve Blank felt that he had to write this, but a sign of the times... steveblank.com/2025/04/15/h...
Steve Blank How the U.S. Became A Science Superpower
Prior to WWII the U.S was a distant second in science and engineering. By the time the war was over, U.S. science and engineering had blown past the British, and led the world for 85 years. It happ…
steveblank.com
April 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Join us in Marseille this July! 💡
☀️CALL FOR PAPERS ☀️

💡 Solar, Lighting and Thermal Photonics (SOLITH) Topical Meeting at the @optica.org Advanced Photonics Congress
🏙️ Marseille, France
📅 July 13-17, 2025
🎯 Abstract submission deadline: Tuesday, 11 March 2025.

Submit your abstract here: www.optica.org/events/congr...
February 8, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Power demand in the US was up 3% last year! Mostly due to greater AC use due to heat waves (hello hottest year on record), plus some "help" from data centers (and EVs). We'd better get used to it though: it's time for growth mode! We need to build new clean supply (at least) 2x as fast as load grows
January 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Feasibility of keeping Mars warm with nanoparticles
Feasibility of keeping Mars warm with nanoparticles
Warming Mars with artificial aerosols appears to be feasible.
www.science.org
December 6, 2024 at 5:43 AM
Solstice, what solstice? It's warmer on Dec. 18 (79F/ 26C) than Jun. 18 (73F/ 23C) here in the western part of LA. A testament to the power of the large thermal mass otherwise known as the Pacific Ocean!
December 18, 2024 at 7:36 PM
“Williams’s painting conveys a proud visual message: I, Francis Williams, free Black gentleman and scholar, born in Jamaica and educated in Britain, witnessed the return of Halley’s comet and I calculated its exact trajectory, according to the rules of the third edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia.”
December 1, 2024 at 5:43 PM
Could California’s effectively deciding to drive up energy prices, partly to help build out clean energy faster, cost lives in the face of more extreme heatwaves? A sobering thought..
November 29, 2024 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
New preprint out on arXiv, "Large tuning of the optical properties of nanoscale NdNiO3 via electron doping" arxiv.org/abs/2411.15679 🧪💡

Led by Yeonghoon Jin from our lab at UW-Madison, Teng Qu from Nanfang Yu's lab at Columbia, and Siddharth Kumar from Shriram Ramanathan's lab at Rutgers
Large tuning of the optical properties of nanoscale NdNiO3 via electron doping
We synthesized crystalline films of neodymium nickel oxide (NdNiO3), a perovskite quantum material, switched the films from a metal phase (intrinsic) into an insulator phase (electron-doped) by field-...
arxiv.org
November 26, 2024 at 2:06 AM
This is wild - hundreds more yet left to discover per the authors www.nytimes.com/2024/11/23/s...
Hundreds More Nazca Lines Emerge in Peru’s Desert
With drones and A.I., researchers managed to double the number of mysterious geoglyphs in a matter of months.
www.nytimes.com
November 24, 2024 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
In a new preprint led by Dr. Parthi Santhanam we demonstrate a monolithically integrated optoelectronic platform for voltage boost conversion. Voltage conversion is a foundational power electronic capability: we show how to do it more compactly and effectively arxiv.org/abs/2410.13220 💡
Chip-scale monolithic optoelectronic voltage boost conversion
Voltage conversion is a fundamental electronic process critical to engineered systems across a wide spectrum of applications and spanning many orders of magnitude in scale. Conventional approaches lik...
arxiv.org
October 18, 2024 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
We are recruiting for multiple faculty positions in our department - please share widely! Deadline is Dec. 1 recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09729
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Faculty Positions in Materials Science & Engineering 2024-2025
University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.apo.ucla.edu
November 16, 2024 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Aaswath Raman
Some thoughts and comments from me on radiative cooling and textiles.. cen.acs.org/materials/To...
Totally rad: Radiative materials redefine cool clothes for a hotter world
Fabrics designed to keep people comfortable without using energy could save lives and the planet
cen.acs.org
November 18, 2024 at 5:42 PM
Some thoughts and comments from me on radiative cooling and textiles.. cen.acs.org/materials/To...
Totally rad: Radiative materials redefine cool clothes for a hotter world
Fabrics designed to keep people comfortable without using energy could save lives and the planet
cen.acs.org
November 18, 2024 at 5:42 PM