Dr. Mukesh Kumar

Dr. Mukesh Kumar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, India. He did his M.Tech. in Solid State Materials from Department of Physics, IIT Delhi. In 2010, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from IIT Delhi for his research on numerous aspects of transparent conducting oxide nanostructures. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at South Dakota State University and National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 2010 to 2013 on nanoscale charge transport of organic solar cells and development of reliable and flexible thin films for next generation flexible optoelectronic devices. Before joining IIT Ropar, Dr. Kumar was working for Hysitron Inc., USA.

Dr. Kumar established Functional and Renewable Energy Materials laboratory (www.fremgroup.in) at IIT Ropar. The main objective of the research team is to work on renewable and clean energy materials for societal needs. His team is working on earth-abundant Cu-Zn-Sn-S material for next-generation cost-effective solar cells, development of hazardous gas sensors and broadband photodetectors. For clean environment they are working on sensors as it is an integral part of all modern devices. In their lab they are developing new 2-D nanomaterials for fast and selective sensor applications. Recently, they have developed cost-effective and zero-powered solar-blind photodetectors, effective only in the solar-blind region < 280 nm, that is an order of magnitude cheaper and better in performance than the current state-of-the-art solar-blind photodetectors available in the market. This type of photodetector has application for missile tracking and solar explorations.

Recently Dr. Kumar has received Young Scientist Research Award from Department of Atomic Energy, Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences; Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy Fellowship from Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF); Young Achievers Award from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Gov. of India; and Faculty Research and Innovation Award (early career category) 2019 from IIT Ropar. Recently, he was selected as a member of Indian National Young Academy of Science (INYAS) and The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI). He was also the recipient of Research Foundation Fellowship to work as a visiting faculty, Binghamton University, SUNY, New York in 2017.