Dr. Prasanta Mandal

Dr. Mandal has an overall 15 years of post-Ph.D. teaching and research experience. He completed his Ph.D. from IIT Bombay in 2008 and went on to gain about 5 years of postdoctoral research experience in the field of plasmonic and photonics from esteemed institutions in India and abroad, including TIFR Mumbai, Ajou University South Korea, and IIT Kanpur. Since 2013, he has been a valuable faculty member at UPES, contributing to excellent teaching, research, and other departmental/institutional administrative activities. His teaching interests encompass various undergraduate and graduate-level courses, while his research excels in the development of plasmonic and photonic metamaterials, SERS spectroscopy study, and radiation sensing (solar energy harvesting) with broad implications for sustainable developments in modern human civilization. He holds an impressive publication record of approximately 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, review articles, and proceedings. With 750 citations, he boasts an H-index of 15 and an i10-index of 19. Dr. Mandal is an internationally recognized reviewer for esteemed journals such as Scientific Reports, Optics Express, and Plasmonic. Currently, he is running a SERB-funded project with a project value of ~18.8 Lakhs INR and actively participates in organizing research meetings and conferences. He is also a permanent member of the Indian Physics Association and serves as a guide to a few doctoral students.

Before joining UPES in 2013, Dr. Mandal gained about 5 years of post-PhD research experience, serving as a visiting scientist at TIFR Mumbai, a postdoctoral research fellow at Ajou University South Korea, and a project scientist at IIT Kanpur. His expertise includes metamaterials fabrication using laser Interference lithography, EBL, SERS spectroscopy, optical near-field study and imaging, UV-Vis's spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and FDTD computation (OPTIWAVE).

Dr. Mandal's strong research interests revolve around plasmonic and photonic metamaterials, experimentation, modelling and computations, near-field and far-field optics, solar energy harvesting, and other optical devices for radiation detection and light manipulation. His research also delves into SERS spectroscopy for chemical sensing with implications in food science & technology, forensic science, defence, and medical diagnostics. Nanofabrication using cutting-edge tools such as laser interference lithography, electron beam lithography, and nanosphere lithography is also a key area of his research.

Dr. Mandal's teaching philosophy centres on a learner-centric and open-minded approach. He emphasizes audio-visual and traditional methods of learning, focusing on understanding, realization, and creation rather than rote memorization.

Dr. Mandal imparts his expertise in various undergraduate and graduate-level courses, including Engineering Physics, Waves and Oscillations, Atomic, Molecular, and Laser Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Photonics, and related laboratory courses.

Dr. Mandal received a fellowship from IIT Kharagpur during MTech (GATE-2000 with AIR 44). He was also awarded a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Fellowship (JRF and SRF) from 2002 to 2007 to conduct PhD from IIT Bombay. He received a prestigious travel grant from DST to attend an international conference in JAPAN in 2005. In 2020, he was awarded UPES best researcher award. Presently he is running a project titled, ‘All-metal plasmonic perfect absorber metamaterial structures to capture visible-NIR radiation: Computational study and experimental feasibility’, funded by SERB. The project is for 3 years (from 2020-2023) with a project value of 18.8 Lakhs INR.

Dr. Mandal has published more than 50 research articles including peer-reviewed international journal publications and refereed proceedings. His articles have received more than 750 citations with an h-index of 15 and an i10-index of 19. He has 9 sole-authored publications and 3 review articles in journals with high impact factors. He is an internationally recognized referee for various journals, such as Scientific Reports, Optics Express, Plasmonic, SPIE Nanophotonic, JAP, Optik, Optical and Quantum Electronics, IEEE Trans & Nano Tech, Optical Engineering, IEEE Photonics, PCCP, etc. Presently he is running a government-funded project awarded by SERB, Government of India. Apart from this, he also organizes various research meetings and national/international conferences. He is a permanent member of the Indian Physics Association and currently guiding a few doctoral students.

pmandal@ddn.upes.ac.in