Department of Physics
Lewis Laboratory 16
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015 USA
Phone: 610-758-3922; FAX: 610-758-5730
Email: ywk0@lehigh.edu
Yong W. Kim attended Seoul National University from 1956 to 1962, receiving the B.S. degree (Physics) in 1960 and the M.S. degree (Physics) in 1962. He served in the Republic of Korea Army for one year from 1960 to 1961. He enrolled in the
University of Nebraska from 1962 to 1963 and held a Teaching Assistantship in the Physics Department. He then entered the University of Michigan in 1963, where he was a Teaching Fellow from 1963 to 1965, held a Research Assistantship from 1965 to 1968 in the Physics Department and earned the Ph.D. degree (Physics) in 1968. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at Lehigh University in 1968, and promoted to Associate Professor in 1973 and to Professor in 1977. Also, he had been Chairman of the Physics Department from 1984 to 1987. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1976. He spent the 12-month year in 2003-04 at Seoul National University as Distinguished Foreign Visiting Professor of Physics at the invitation of the University and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea.
While a student at the University of Michigan under the late Professor Otto Laporte, he conducted both experimental and theoretical studies on mercury plasmas as heated by strong shock waves driven into the vapor of mercury. He has since continued the atomic and plasma physics research at Lehigh with emphasis on transient kinetics and collective phenomena. His interest has broadened, during his tenure at Lehigh, to include the areas of fluctuation in gases and nonlinear phenomena in fluids. Recent research topics include: light scattering spectroscopy; transport phenomena in ultra-dense plasmas; persistent autocorrelation in Brownian motion; laser-matter interactions; 1/f dynamics and self-organized criticality; modeling of atom transport in disordered binary metallic alloys by thermal forcing; and thermophysical property measurement at high temperatures by the method of laser-produced plasma plume spectroscopy.
He has produced twenty Ph.D. students in the areas of research mentioned above. The most recent students completing the Ph.D. requirements since 2005 are:
Hedok Lee, “3-D Visualization in Laser-Produced Aluminum Plasmas and Nano-particle Formation,” Lehigh University (received Ph.D. in 2005). (Currently on the faculty of anesthegeology of New York State University at Stony Brook).
John R. Labenski, “Shock Interaction with a Two-Gas Interface in a Novel Dual-Driver Shock Tube,” (received Ph.D. in 2005). (Presently on the research staff of BAE Systems).
Nopporn Poolyarat, Ph.D. dissertation, “Coherence Length Spectroscopy of Discharge Plasma,” Lehigh University (received Ph.D. in January 2007). (Currently on the physics faculty of Thamasat University, Bangkok, Thailand)
Paul A. Belony, Jr., “Kinetics of Vapor Emissions near Wire Explosion Threshold,” (January, 2011). (He begins the spring semester, 2011 at the College of Saint Elizabeth, New Jersey as a visiting assistant professor in physics.)
He has included a steady stream of physics undergraduates in his research projects, and some of them have entered into academic careers. For example, David Greve is on the electrical engineering and computer science faculty of Carnegie Mellon University; Nicholas Bigelow is on the physics faculty of the University of Rochester; and Richard Superfine is on the physics faculty of the University of North Carolina.
His original research in four different topical areas are widely recognized: the memory effects in Brownian motion; development of novel concepts in shock wave generation; elucidation of laser-produced plasmas as applied to composition and thermophysical property determination of metallic alloys; and first-principle modeling of the thermal history dependence of morphology of disordered metallic alloys.
He has had a series of undergraduate students as NSF-REU participants at Lehigh working on a variety of basic research problems in the recent years: Andrew Abraham of Moravian College and Jerry Kim of UCLA in 2008 worked on measurements of the size distribution function of crystallites in 2-D randomly close packed (RCP) beds of steel spheres as model systems of disordered binary metallic alloys; Matt Bross of Moravian College in 2009 worked on a new experiment of wire explosion in a small confined space; and Nathan Tomer of Drake University, Iowa carried out a successful experiment on simulated heating of a 2-D bed of spheres by mechanical forcing in two mutually orthogonal directions during summer 2010. Tomer’s work, together with those of Abraham and Kim, signifies a milestone for the new research initiative of first-principle modeling of the thermal history dependence of transport properties of disordered metallic alloys. The development provides the foundation for the dissertation research by Ryan Cress as part of the new initiative.
The sponsors of his research programs have included: the National Science Foundation; U.S. Department of Energy; Pennsylvania Power and Light Company; Potomac Electric Power Company; Electric Power Research Institute; Naval Ordinance Station; U.S. Army; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Envirotech-Buell; Pennsylvania Science and Engineering Foundation; American Iron and Steel Institute; the Ben Franklin Fund; CTU 5-2 Consortium of metals producers for laser-produced plasmas; Atlas Powder Company; the Pool Memorial Trust Fund; and Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory.
In the years 1984-87 when he was Chairman of the Physics Department, he initiated, and completed, a massive development program, which included an addition/renovation of the Physics Building, hiring of five new faculty members, doubling of graduate enrollment and research funding. He also implemented the next phase program of continued faculty hiring to attain the 25-faculty department.
He has interacted in a consulting capacity with a number of companies, academic institutions and federal agencies on matters involving small particulates, high power lasers, rapid kinetics of reacting systems, electro-optic instrumentation, electrostatic precipitation, blast waves, trace-level molecule detection, and in-process surface analysis. He is inventor or co-inventor in five U.S. patents and many foreign patents. He had undertaken the task of assessing the state-of-the-art of the research efforts toward realization of quantum computation, and completed an assessment report for the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982; the citation reads, "for his pioneering experimental work in the dynamics of ionized gas flow in a boundary layer and in persistence and memory effects in fluid dynamics." He was chairman of the international advisory committee of the International Symposium on Shock Waves and organized its 17th biennial meeting held at Lehigh University in 1989 as the symposium chair; he edited and published a proceedings volume, Current Research in Shock Waves, Y.W. Kim, editor (Conference Proceedings No.208, American Institute of Physics, 1990). He served for ten years as an editor and a member of the editorial board of Shock Waves, An International (Springer-Verlag) Journal, and has been an overseas editor of the Journal of the Korean Physical Society since 1995. He served the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association as a councilor (physics, 1988-91), auditor (1994-97) and advisor to the president of the KSEA (2005-06), and the Association of Korean Physicists in America as president (1990-91).
His current research projects include: development of coherence length spectroscopy for studies of excitation transfer in plasma; origins of non-Gaussian distributions in chaotic systems; thermal and EM-field structures in non-symmetric self-absorbing volume radiators; metallic nano-cluster formation; dynamics of crystallites in randomly close packed granular piles; and first-principle theory of the temperature dependence of transport properties of disordered metallic alloys.
Selected Publications since 2005:
Y.W. Kim, "Composition-Profile Basis of Depth Dependent Thermophysical Properties," Thermal Conductivity 26, R.B. Dinwiddie, ed. (DEStec Publications, Lancaster, PA, 2005). p. 146-158.
Y.W. Kim, “Routes To Development Of Near-Surface Alloy Composition Anomaly,” Int’l J. Thermophysics 26, 1051(2005).
Y.W. Kim, H.-D. Lee and P. Belony, Jr., “Metallic Nano-Cluster Formation in Neutral Gas-Confined Laser Produced Plasma Afterglow,” Rev. Sci. Instr. 17, 10F115 (2006).Y.W. Kim, “Surface Position-Resolved Thermophysical Properties for Metallic Alloys,” Int. J. Thermophysics 28, 732-741 (2007).
Y.W. Kim, “Benard-Marangoni Instability as Possible Modifier of Surface Alloy Composition,” Int. J. Thermophysics 28, 1037-1047 (2007).
Y.W. Kim, “Charge Separation in Neutral Gas-Confined Laser-Produced Plasmas,” a book chapter in a graduate textbook, Plasma Polarization Spectroscopy, ed. T. Fujimoto and A. Iwamae, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (2007). Chapter 10.1.
Y.W. Kim and N. Poolyarat, “Spectroscopic Interferometer for Coherence Length Spectroscopy of Pulsed Discharge Plasma,* Rev. Sci. Instr. 79, 10E715 (2008).
Y.W. Kim, “Development of Transport Property-Composition Relationship by Thermal Modification of Alloy Composition Profile,” High Temperatures – High Pressures 38, 1 (2009).
Y.W. Kim, “Simultaneous Multitemperature Measurements of Thermal Diffusivity and Composition,” Int. J. Thermophysics (DOI 10.1007/s10765-009-0692-1, December 15, 2009, 2009).
Y.W. Kim, “Simultaneous Multitemperature Measurements of Thermal Diffusivity and Composition,” Int. J. Thermophysics 31, 926-935 (2010).
P.A. Belony, Jr. and Y.W. Kim, “Dynamics of Vapor Emissions at Wire Explosion Threshold,” Rev. Sci. Instr. 81, 10E512 (2010).
Y.W. Kim and R.P. Cress, “Physical Mechanisms Contributing to Thermal History Dependence of Thermophysical Properties of Disordered Metallic Alloys,” High Temperature – High Pressure (in press, 2011).
Patents:
Y.W. Kim and T.W. Harding, "Electron Attachment Apparatus and Method", U.S. Patent Number 4,713,548 (15 December 1987).
Y.W. Kim, "Transient Spectroscopic Method and Apparatus for In-Process Analysis of Molten Metal," U.S. Patent Number 4,986,658 (22 January 1991). Foreign patents issued in Australia (Patent No. 637,795), South Africa (Patent No. 90/2481), Mexico (Patent No. 341748), Poland (Patent No. 164,530), Brazil (Patent No. PI9007307-0), India (Patent No. 176761), Taiwan (Patent No. 49106) and South Korea (Patent No. 115374), Czech Republic (Patent No. 285316, July 14, 1999), Canada (Patent Letters No. 2,051,125, November 30, 1999); European Union (Patent No. 469083; individual national patent numbers to be issued in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and the United Kingdom).
Y.W. Kim and W.A. Frederick, "Optically-Assisted Gas Decontamination Process," U.S. Patent 4,995,955 (26 February 1991).
Y.W. Kim and W.A. Frederick, "Lamp Sheath Assembly for Optically-Assisted Gas Decontamination Process," U.S. Patent 5,138,175 (11 August 1992).
Y.W. Kim, "Reexamination: Transient Spectroscopic Method and Apparatus for In-Process Analysis of Molten Metal," U.S. Patent Number B1 4,986,658 (25 June 1996).
Selected Examples of Synergistic Activities:
Collaborated on the state-of-the-art assessment of the status of information technology as part of a team of computer scientists, electrical engineers and physicists; wrote a technical report on quantum computing research: Y.W. Kim, “An Assessment of Quantum Computation Research;” this 64-page report is available at two websites:
(see https://www.ksea.org/KSEA/contents/ksea-tm-2006-02.pdf , or http://akpa.org/). (2005-06).
Invented and developed a new methodology and instrumentation, based on real-time spectroscopy of laser produced plasma plumes, to make in-situ measurement of elemental composition of molten steel alloys in alloying furnaces in close alliance with the AISI’s consortium of 13 North-American steel and aluminum alloy producers; resulted in worldwide patents (1984–2000).
Collaborated with Alex Rae-Grant, M.D., of the Lehigh Valley Medical Hospital Center and his medical colleagues at McMaster University Medical School in Canada on nonlinear dynamics of EEG patterns of severely brain injured patients; formulated fractal measures and published two articles in the journal of EEG and Clinical Physiology (1991-1993).