Dr Mukesh Kumar
Dr. Mukesh Kumar
Associate Professor
mkumar@iitrpr.ac.in
01881-23-2462
Room No. 18 Super Academic Block

Biography

Dr. Mukesh Kumar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, India. In 2010, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi for his research on numerous aspects of transparent conducting oxide nanostructures. He then moved to South Dakota State University, SD, USA in Feb 2010 for his post-doctoral research where he worked to develop novel scanning probe microscopy facilities for nanoscale charge transport in organic solar cell materials. Since Dec 2011, Dr. Kumar was working with Colorado School of Mines and National Center for Photovoltaics, National Renewal Energy Laboratory, Colorado, USA for the development of reliable and flexible thin films for next generation flexible solar cells and cathode materials for lithium ion batteries. Before joining at IIT Ropar, Dr. Kumar was working for Hysitron Inc., USA. Dr. Kumar has received many prestigious awards like Young Scientist Research Awards from Department of Atomic Energy; Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy Fellowship from Indo-US Science and Technology Forum; Young Achiever Award from Bhabha Atomic Research centre; Faculty Research and Innovation Award from IIT Ropar (Early career) and Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship from US-India Education Foundation. Dr. Kumar is also a member of Indian National Young Academy of Science and The National Academy of Sciences, India. 




Area of Research

Functional and Renewable Energy Materials, Thin Film, TMDC, Heterostructures, Solar cells, Photodetectors and Sensors


Education

  • Ph.D., Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India (2010)
  • M. Tech., Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India (2005)


Work Experience

  • Dec 2019 – Till date               Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, India

    May 2023 – July 2023            JSPS Fellow, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    March 2022 – July 2022         Fulbright Fellow (USIEF), Syracuse University, USA

    May 2018 – July 2018            Visiting Faculty, Rice University, USA

    June 2017 – July 2017            Visiting Faculty, Binghamton University, USA

    May 2015 – July 2015            BASE Fellow (IUSSTF) at South Dakota State University, USA

    Dec 2013 – Dec 2019             Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, India

    July 2013 – Nov 2013             Application Scientist, Hysitron Inc. USA

    Dec 2011 – July 2013             Research Associate, Colorado School of Mines and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, CO, USA

    Feb 2010 – July 2013             Research Associate, South Dakota State University, USA

    July 2005 – Feb 2020             Research scholar, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India


Other Information

Awards and recognition:  

2022                World top 2% scientist, Stanford University, USA

2022                Top cited author in India (top 5 %), Royal Society of Chemistry

2021                Top Cited Paper Award-2021 by Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing, UK

2019                Faculty Research and Innovation Award, IIT Ropar, India

2018                Young Achiever Award, Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Gov. of India

2018                Research highlighted in global news,

                        https://phys.org/news/2018-08-scientists-uv-detector-based-nanocrystals.html

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/lu-sca080618.php

2015                Young Scientist Research Award, Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Gov. of India

2012                News on Nanorocket, Nature News India,

http://www.nature.com/nindia/2012/120113/full/nindia.2012.2.html

2011                Young Scientist Travel award, Material Research Society, USA

2008                Young Scientist Travel Award, Department of Science and Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India


Fellow/Memberships of Academies:

 

2023                JSPS Fellow, Japan Society for the promotion of the Science (JSPS), Japan

2022                Fellow, Institute of Physics, UK

2019                Member of The National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) (www.nasi.org.in)

2018                Member of Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (INYAS), India (INYAS, www.insaindia.res.in)

Research

The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy along with a clean environment is the most important scientific and technical challenge facing the 21st century. Functional and Renewable Energy Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics is working hard in the direction of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics to study the fundamental science of numerous materials for photovoltaic, broadband photodetectors and hazardous gas sensor. The group is focused to develop earth-abundant and cost-effective Cu-Zn-Sn-S solar cells by optimizing the secondary phases and interface engineering. Recently, the group has achieved a champion solar cell with a photoconversion efficiency of 6.1%. As an alternative and clean source of energy, hydrogen is an efficient source of energy and produces zero pollution when burned with oxygen or air. Nonetheless, hydrogen is explosive in nature when mixed with air even in a small concentration (4%). Hence, the fast detection of hydrogen gas well below the critical concentration is very crucial for the safety purpose of next-generation clean energy production and regulation. We are working to develop a fast and reliable hydrogen sensor. These sensors have potential applications for next-generation clean fuel hydrogen vehicles. The group is also focused to develop other hazardous gas sensors for environmental monitoring. Broadband photodetector has lots of applications. As sun emits a broad range of radiation including UV light which is at the same time important and dangerous for life on Earth, depending on its exact wavelength. We are working to develop 2D materials and its heterojunction based IR photodetector and gallium oxide-based UVC photodetectors for civil and military applications. 


Group Member

PhD Students at present: 

  • Damanpreet Kaur
  • Gaurav Bassi
  • Shivani
  • Puja
  • Vinit
  • Rohit Dahiya
  • Moumita Pradhan
  • Priya Rani

PhD students graduated:

  • Dr. Naveen Kumar
  • Dr. Abhay V. Agrawal
  • Dr. Kanika Arora
  • Dr. Kulwinder Kaur
  • Dr. Nisika
  • Dr. Riya Wadhwa

Lab Facility

  • Multi-target sputtering 
  • Low temperature Hall measurement 
  • Thin film solar cells fabrication
  • EQE/IQE
  • Thermal CVD system 
  • Keithley 6430 and 4200

Publications

1. Impact of ion-specific interactions on laser-induced liquid microjet generation
Bhawna Rana, Rakshith Kamath, Manoranjan Mishra, Dr. Deepika ChoudhuryDr. Mukesh KumarProf. P. K. RainaDr. Pushpendra P. SinghDr. Rajesh V. NairDr. Shankhadeep Chakrabortty
Phys. Fluids 36

2. Interfacial-mixing and band engineering induced by annealing of CdS and a-Ga2O3 n-n type thin film heterojunction and its impact on carrier dynamics for high-performance solar-blind photodetection
Damanpreet Kaur, Riya Wadhwa, Nisika, Yuchen Zhang, Poojan Indrajeet Kaswekar, Quinn Qiao, Anju Sharma, Mark D. Poliks and Mukesh Kumar, Dr. Mukesh Kumar
ACS Applied Electronic Materials  5, 3798





2. Enhanced adsorption sites in monolayer MoS2 pyramid structures for highly sensitive and fast hydrogen sensor
Abhay V. Agrawal, R. Kumar, G. Yang, J. Bao, M. Kumar, Dr. Mukesh Kumar
Int. J. Hydrogen Energy  2020, 45


4. Origin of enhanced carrier mobility and electrical conductivity in seed-layer assisted sputtered grown Al doped ZnO thin films
Naveen Kumar, A. H. Chowdhury, B. Bahrami, M. R. Khan, Q. Qiao, , Dr. Mukesh Kumar
Thin Solid Films 700, 137916




1. Flat-top laser beams over an extended range
A. N. K. Reddy, Dr. Mukesh KumarProf. P. K. RainaDr. Pushpendra P. SinghDr. Rajesh V. NairDr. Shankhadeep ChakraborttyDr. Sourav Bhattacharya, S. Mahler, A. A. Friesem, and N. Davidson
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1410, 012126 (2019)

2. ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy and its Relevance to Probe the Molecular Level Interactions between Amino Acids and Metal-Oxide Nanoparticles at Solid/Aqueous Interface
Deepak Tomar, Harpreet Kaur, Harsharan Kaur, Bhawna Rana, Krutika Talegaonkar, Vivek Maharana, Dr. Mukesh KumarProf. P. K. RainaDr. Pushpendra P. SinghDr. Rajesh V. NairDr. Shankhadeep ChakraborttyDr. Sourav Bhattacharya
Springer Book chapter as Proceeding of “Advances in Spectroscopy: Molecules to Materials”, Springer, Nature Publications 236, 3-21
1. Design of low surface roughness-low residual stress-high optoelectronic merit a-IZO thin films for flexible OLEDs
Naveen Kumar, T. M. Wilkinson, C. E. Packard , Dr. Mukesh Kumar
Journal of Applied Physics  119, 225303

2. Room temperature, air crystallized perovskite film for high performance solar cells
A. Dubey, A. Kantack, N. Adhikari, K. M. Reza, S. Venkatesan , Dr. Mukesh Kumar, D. Khatiwada, S. Darling, and Q. Qiao, 
Journal of Materials Chemistry A 4, 10231

3. Shelf life stability comparison in air for solution processed pristine PDPP3T polymer and doped spiro-OMeTAD as hole transport layer for perovskite solar cell
Ashish Dubey, Nirmal Adhikari, Swaminathan Venkatesan, Shaopeng Gu, Devendra Khatiwada, Qi Wang, Lal Mohammad , Dr. Mukesh Kumar, Q. Qiao, 
Data in Brief  7, 139
1. Strategic review of secondary phases, defects and defect-complexes in kesterite CZTS-Se solar cells
Dr. Mukesh Kumar, , A. Dubey, N. Adhikari, S. Venkatesan, and Q. Qiao, 
Energy & Environmental Science 8, 3134

2. Origin of photogenerated carrier recombination at metal - active layer interface in polymer solar cells
Dr. Mukesh Kumar,  A. Dubey, K. M. Reza, N. Adhikari, Q. Qiao, and V. Bommisetty, 
Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics 17, 27690

3. Interfacial Study To Suppress Charge Carrier Recombination for High Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells
N. Adhikari, A. Dubey, D. Khatiwada, A. F. Mitul, Q. Wang, S. Venkatesan, A. Iefanova, J. Zai, X. Qian, Dr. Mukesh Kumar, and Q. Qiao, 
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces  7, 26445

Open Position

We are open for motivated PhD students to work in the functional and renewable energy materials for broadband photodetector, solar cells and sensors.  

Teaching

  • Thin Film Science and Technology
  • Physics and Application of Nanomaterials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Quantum Mechanics