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 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 System, Germany and subsequently moved to EPFL, Switzerland worked on SFG scattering spectroscopy to probe formation and characterization of model membrane systems at the water / nanoscopic oil droplet interfaces.
Experimental Bio-Physics, Nonlinear Laser Spectroscopy
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:
