Research Projects

From the very discovery of the first two-dimensional (2D) material, graphene, in 2004, this class of materials offered a new platform for exploring fundamental physics and breaking through technological bottlenecks. As a result, 2D materials are quickly promoted as strategic materials in versatile fields like spintronics, electronics, catalysis, energy storage, and flexible devices due to their exceptional properties compared to their bulk counterpart. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and MXenes have been most widely studied in the 2D family after graphene due to their remarkable optical, electrical, and physicochemical properties. Again the introduction of broken mirror symmetry and disorder in 2D materials have added a new class of functionalities with magnificent physical, chemical, and quantum phenomena. As a result, in the recent past, there has been a trend among the research communities to synthesize asymmetric and disordered 2D materials along with their hybrid structure based on TMDs and MXenes and exploring their new properties such as colossal Rashba splitting, high electron-phonon coupling, vertical piezo-electricity, high carrier mobility, long spin relaxation, exciton lifetime tailoring, for a wide range of applications. Further, the manipulation of spin states under the influence of modifications in crystallographic orientation driven by the presence of an external magnetic field or light exposure or both have the potential to open doors to a new mystery-laden exhilarating dimension of spin-manipulated charge transport for developing self-powered photodetectors, which is yet to be fully explored and understood. In this endeavor, first, we will develop innovative methods for the affordable, facile synthesis of 2D asymmetric TMDs and disorder engineering in 2D materials. For the optimizations, to get the desired properties, synthesized 2D materials will be characterized thoroughly using standard characterization tools for structural, morphological, topological, optical, and electronic properties. Secondly, we aim to understand the magnetic field or light-induced intricate spin manipulated charge transport (separation and storage) pathways, Rashba spin splitting, electron-phonon interactions induced by engineering disorder, and asymmetry into 2D materials thorough & rigorous theoretical and experimental practices. Further, the magnetic field (or light exposure) induced alterations, spin momentum locked charge transfer in asymmetric systems with Janus type configuration, disorder-induced increment in topological spin density and charge mobility, magneto-healing in optimized heterostructures, and spin-manipulated charge transport are the key areas we aim to address and discover in our journey towards unraveling spin-manipulate charge transport in hybrid asymmetric/disordered 2D Materials for developing efficient, broadband and self-powered photodetectors.