Principal Investigator

Prof. Saurabh Mani Tripathi is a Professor of Photonics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi). His research lies in the area of guided-wave photonics, advanced optical sensing, and non-Hermitian optics.

Over the years, his research has explored a wide range of guided-wave photonic systems, including Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs), Long-Period Gratings (LPGs), directional couplers, interferometric and multimode structures, integrated photonic devices, plasmonics, and metamaterials. A central theme of his work has been the development of highly sensitive and temperature-insensitive optical sensors through mode engineering, dispersion control, and multimodal interference. His recent research extends these concepts to photonic time crystals, non-Hermitian photonic dynamics, exceptional-point-enhanced sensing, and machine-learning-assisted signal demodulation.

His research has led to the development of photonic sensing platforms for biochemical and environmental monitoring, including the detection of E. coli bacteria in water. Notably, this work resulted in an inherently temperature-insensitive fiber-optic sensor for accurate E. coli detection under large temperature fluctuations. He has also made significant contributions to the understanding of critical-wavelength phenomena in modal-interference-based fiber sensors, providing new approaches to engineer and enhance the sensitivity of guided-wave optical sensors.

Prof. Tripathi obtained his doctoral degree from IIT Delhi under the supervision of Prof. Arun Kumar. As part of his doctoral research, he worked at the Laboratoire Hubert Curien, Saint-Étienne, France, from 2007 to 2009 and was an Eiffel Excellence Fellow during 2008–2009. He subsequently carried out his postdoctoral research at the Photonics Research Centre, University of Quebec, Canada, where he served as team leader for a long-period-grating-based biosensor program from 2011 to 2013.

His current research vision centers on combining fundamental photonic phenomena, advanced waveguide engineering, and intelligent, data-driven approaches to develop next-generation optical technologies with enhanced sensitivity, robustness, and functionality.