Welcome !

I am a Core Postdoctoral Appointee in the Nanoscale and Synthesis Characterization (NSC) group at the Centre for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). My work involves Quantum Information Science (QIS) projects with 2D Semiconductors through STM, AFM, and nanoscale optical spectroscopy.

• I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University Under Sir Fraser Stoddart. I worked on fundamental research on surface dynamics and the self-assembly process (fibrous structures) of simple molecular building blocks. I have used AFM, FS-AFM, SEM, TEM, HR-TEM, Solid-State Raman Spectroscopy, XPS, and AFM-TERS for analyzing the surface at the fundamental level.

• I finished my graduation from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). I joined the Jiang Research Lab in the Fall of 2017. I am privileged to be advised by Dr. Nan Jiang. Before enrolling at UIC, I did my Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) where I was advised by Dr. Thiruvancheril G. Gopakumar. I also spent a few months as a Summer Research Fellow (SRF) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, where I worked at the Inorganic and Physical Chemistry dept. (IPC) with Prof. Elanganan Arunan. During the summer of 2015, I was a research intern at Dr. Samita Basu's Lab at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata. 

• My thesis research was mainly focused on Angstrom-Scale chemical analysis of surface-supported molecular structures (single-molecules) and two-dimensional materials with the advancement of Ultrahigh Vacuum Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (UHV-STM, UNISOKU 1400) & Ultrahigh Vacuum Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (UHV-TERS, home-built). 

Due to the diffraction limit of light, it has been a long-standing goal to chemically detect and characterize single molecules using visible light. In recent times, with the integration of STM and optical spectroscopy inside the ultrahigh vacuum (UHV), TERS can obtain both the topographic and chemical information simultaneously with ultrahigh resolution (angstrom scale sensitivity). Therefore, by probing the light-matter interaction at the atomic scale using TERS, I aim to shed light on some of the vital chemistry and physics-related problems in the single-molecule study ranging from spectroscopy to molecular-level catalysis.

Single-molecule engineering of precursor molecules to different desired products on the surface is another area that draws my attention in recent times. With atomically confined light at the STM tip apex, the highly energetic plasmons generated at the tip apex can be specifically utilized to probe certain chemical reactions. The utilization of visible light towards chemical transformation could prove extremely useful in terms of lower energy requirements as well as in solar-to-chemical energy conversion.

At IIT Kanpur, I have worked on ambient-STM and ambient-AFM to study Molecular Switches which are one of the most important components of Nanoelectronics. We have designed and analyzed the azo-benzene derivative compounds via room-temperature STM, STS, and DFT calculations.