Functional materials for resistive switching applications and Strongly correlated systems like spinel oxides for superconductivity.
Ferroelectric materials based photovoltaic effect near room temperature.
Research statement: Identifying new and promising memory devices is the need of the hour looking at the concern for high storage capacity and memory cell miniaturization. In the recent advancement of technology, resistive type devices (called memristors) have found new pathways to overshoot limitations of downscaling of existing Si-based memory device. The memristors are employed on the basis of change in resistive state by means of applied voltage or current. Storing entire databases in fast, non-volatile Resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) would revolutionize in-memory computing. Identifying new materials that can be used in such memristive devices with improved device functionalities remains a key challenge for their practical application. However, strongly correlated transition metal oxides have shown some promising results towards this direction. I am highly motivated to explore such materials and understand the underlying microscopic mechanism that will give significant insights of these materials to design more efficient devices. This can be achieved by a systematic change at molecular level in the existing materials through different ways such as chemical doping, interface engineering, controlling the extent of disorder. Currently, I am working on exploring new materials and their derivatives exhibiting resistive switching behaviour and investigating the charge carrier dynamics. In addition, I am parallally working on the ferroelectric materials that exhibit the photovoltaic characteristics. In our recent work, P. Pal et al. J. Phys. Chem. C 125, 5315 (2021), we have observed the enhanced room-temperature photovoltaic effect in ferroelectric Bi and Fe co-doped BaTiO3.