degree in electrical engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 1987.
He joined Bilkent University in 1995, where he is currently a full professor in the physics and electrical electronics engineering departments.
His research areas include metamaterials, photonic crystals, MOCVD growth, fabrication and characterization of nanoelectronic and nanophotonic GaN/AlGaN devices, and high-performance near-infrared semiconductor photodetectors and lasers.
[3] Currently, he is principal investigator and executive committee member of 3 EU-FP projects: STREP project EU-DALHM (Development and Analysis of Left Handed Materials), NoE-PHOREMOST (Nanophotonics to realize Molecular-Scale Technologies), and NoE-METAMORPHOSE (MetaMaterials Organized for radio, millimeter wave, and PHOtonic Superlattice Engineering).
Özbay was the 1997 recipient of the Adolph Lomb Medal of the Optical Society of America and in 2005 of the European Union Descartes Science Award.