Dr. Jena joined the Department of Physics as an Assistant Professor on 31st of December, 2013. His research expertise is in the field of nonlinear sum-frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy and its application to probe the molecular structure of various biomolecules and their interactions with interfacial water molecules at air/water and solid/water interfaces. He received his Ph.D. degree in 2008 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, under the mentorship of Prof. Prem B. Bisht and Prof. S. Kasiviswanathan. During his Ph.D. program, he studied the nonlinear optical properties and relaxation processes of organic molecules by using the laser-induced transient grating technique. He joined Prof. Dennis Hore's group in 2007 as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Victoria, Canada studied interfacial water structure at solid / water interfaces using SFG vibrational spectroscopy. In 2011, he joined Prof. Sylvie Roke's group at Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany, and subsequently moved to EPFL, Switzerland, where he worked on SFG scattering spectroscopy to probe formation and characterization of model membrane systems at the water / nanoscopic oil droplet interfaces.
Five Best Publications
1) Bhawna Rana, David J. Fairhurst, and Kailash C. Jena, “Ion-Specific Water-Macromolecule Interactions at Air/Aqueous Interface: An Insight into Hofmeister Effect”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 145 (2023) 033703.
2) Bhawna Rana, David J. Fairhurst, and Kailash C. Jena, “Investigation of Water Evaporation Process at Air/Water Interface using Hofmeister Ions”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 144 (2022) 17832.
3) Harpreet Kaur, Shilpi Chaudhary, Harsharan Kaur, Monika Chaudhary, and Kailash C. Jena, "Hydrolysis and Condensation of Tetraethyl Orthosilicate at the Air-Aqueous Interface: Implications for Silica Nanoparticle Formation", ACS Applied Nano Materials 5 (2022) 411.
4) Yixing Chen, Kailash C. Jena, Cornelis Lutgebaucks, Halil Okur and Sylvie Roke, "Three-Dimensional Nano ‘Langmuir Trough’ for lipid Studies”, Nano Letters, 15 (2015) 5558.
5) Kailash C. Jena, Rudiger Scheu, and Sylvie Roke, “Surface Impurities Are Not Responsible for the Charge on the Oil/Water Interface: A Comment”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 51 (2012) 12938, Angew. Chem. 124 (2012) 13112.
Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy, Experimental Soft Matter Physics, Surfaces and Interfaces, Confined Water Structure, Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy, Interferometry, Biophysics
Our research interest is highly interdisciplinary in nature covering many subjects in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Material Science and Engineering. The main objective of our research group at IIT Ropar is to explore the interfacial structure of molecules at various interfaces. By keeping this in mind, we probe planar interfaces (air / liquid, solid / liquid, liquid / liquid) with the presence of various important biological macromolecules. We implement state-of-the-art nonlinear laser spectroscopic tool to extract a detailed molecular level information about the molecules residing at the interface and their influence on the pristine interfacial water structure. We keep our priorities on fields like protein-protein interaction, nanomaterial for sensing application, drug-polymer interaction, binding of DNA with polymer nanocomposites, specific ion effects, nano-bio mimicking systems, laser induced microjet formation, understanding fundamentals of evaporation, self-assembly of molecules. We use surface specific sum frequency generation vibration spectroscopy supplemented by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and microscopy, Langmuir-Blodgett Trough to probe the mentioned molecular systems.
Past Members:
Sum-frequency Generation Vibrational Spectrometer
ATR-FTIR Spectrometer and Microscope
Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy (IRRAS) Setup (Developed Inhouse)
Langmuir–Blodgett Trough (Surface Tension Measurement)
Zetesizer and Zeta Potential Analyzer
Picosecond and Nano Second Laser Based Liquid Jet and Microjet Generation Setup (Developed Inhouse)
Time-Resolved Interferometry Setup (Developed Inhouse)
