Rate My Professor Philip Rack

Philip Rack is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, within the Tickle College of Engineering, where he holds the Leonard G. Penland Chair and directs the Center for Materials Processing. He earned his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993 and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida in 1997, with dissertation research on thin film deposition, surface analysis, and theoretical modeling of optical transitions in thin film electroluminescent materials. After his doctorate, Rack joined Advanced Vision Technologies Inc. as a Senior Research Scientist in 1997, leading research on luminescent and field emitter materials and contributing to process development for vacuum microelectronic devices. In 1999, he became faculty in the Microelectronic Engineering Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology, teaching courses in thin film processing, materials characterization, and microlithography while researching VUV optical properties and vacuum microelectronic devices. Rack joined the University of Tennessee faculty in 2001. He served as interim head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department effective July 1, 2024, and received the Collaborative Leadership Award in November 2025 for promoting supportive environments, advancing leadership development, building partnerships, and fostering collaboration.

Rack investigates emergent properties of nanoscale materials and devices, combinatorial thin film processing, fabrication of nanoscale devices, and nanoscale focused electron, ion, and photon beam induced processing. His research interests include thin-film processing and characterization, materials and device nanofabrication, combinatorial thin film synthesis for rapid materials discovery, and materials integration for advanced device applications. He has authored or co-authored over 200 refereed journal articles, including three book chapters and seven invited review articles, and contributed to over 330 technical presentations, 70 of which were invited. Key publications include "Emerging Nanofabrication and Quantum Confinement Techniques for 2D Materials Beyond Graphene" (NJP 2D Materials and Applications, 2018), "High-Fidelity 3D-Nanoprinting using a Focused Electron Beam: Computer-Aided Design (CAD)" (ACS Applied Nano Materials, 2018), and "Evolutionary Selection Growth of Two Dimensional Materials on Polycrystalline Substrates" (Nature Materials, 2018). Rack has received the University of Tennessee College of Engineering Research Fellow Award in 2013, 2016, and 2020; the AVS Fellowship in 2018; and CNMS Division Awards for Distinguished Scientific Paper from ORNL in 2016 and 2017. He is a Fellow of AVS, serving on the executive committee of its Thin Film Division, and a member of the Materials Research Society.