Arvind Pujari

I am currently in my fourth year of the MRes+PhD program (the third year of my PhD) at the NanoDTC at the University of Cambridge where I work on light-rechargeable photo-batteries (2020-24).

I am supervised by Neil Greenham of the Optoelectronics Group at the Department of Physics and Michael De Volder of the Nanomanufacturing Group at the Department of Engineering.

Prior to this I completed my undergraduate degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (2016-20). There, I received the Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma President of India Gold Medal as the undergraduate student with the best all-round performance in curricular and extra-curricular actvities.

I was associated with Tiju Thomas' group at IIT Madras where I worked on computational plasmonics. I've also had the privelege of spending summers at IIT Gandhinagar with Kabeer Jasuja and at Purdue University with David Warsinger. At Cambridge, I've spent lab rotations with Roisin Owens, Tuomas Knowles and Stephan Hoffman.

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Research

My research focuses on using interactions between light and batteries to enhance their energy storage and study electrochemical mechanisms. I work on understanding the underlying device physics of integrated photoelectrochemical storage systems and using operando UV-vis spectroscopy techniques to probe mechanisms in lithium-ion batteries.

News

(Jul 2024) First author paper on the physics of photobatteries published in ACS Energy Letters!
(Jun 2024) Spending 3 months at the Tokyo Institute of Technology through a JSPS Summer Fellowship
(May 2024) First author paper on the design of optical batteries published in Small Methods!
(Oct 2023) First author paper on thermal contributions to aqueous photobatteries published in ACS Energy Letters!
(Jul 2023) Gave a talk on the fundamental studies of mechanisms of photobatteries at MC16 at Dublin.
(Sep 2021) Completed my masters with a distinction! Onto the PhD!
(Aug 2021) Paper on effective refractive indexes of core-shell plasmonic nanoparticles published in Materialia
(May 2021) Joined Neil Greenham's/Michael De Volder's groups (Physics/Engineering) for my PhD project on light-rechargeable photobatteries
(Jan 2021) Joining Stephan Hoffman's group (ElecEng) for a lab-rotation on the characterization of 2D materials
(Jan 2021) First author paper on light-trapping in solar cells by Al-alloy plasmonic nanoparticles published in Sustainable Materials and Technologies
(Nov 2020) Joining the groups of Roisin Owens (ChemEng) and Tuomas Knowles (Chemistry) for a lab-rotation on microfluidics for exosome detection
(Nov 2020) One of only 8 receipients of the INAE Innovative Student Project Award for my undergraduate thesis!
(Sep 2020) Joined the University of Cambridge for an MRes+PhD in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology!
(Sep 2020) Graduated from IIT Madras with a CGPA of 8.90. Phew!
(Sep 2020) Received the B. Krishnamurty Silver Medal for the best undergraduate thesis in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at IIT Madras!
(Sep 2020) Received the Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal for the best all-round performance by an undergrad at IIT Madras between 2016-2020!
(Jul 2020) First author paper on the plasmonic properties of Al-Cu core-shell nanoparticles published in Materials Chemistry and Physics
(Jun 2020) Defended my undergraduate thesis on modelling Al-based plasmonics at IIT Madras!
(May 2019) Spending a summer at David Warsinger's group at Purdue (MechEng) working on inverse opals nanomembranes
(Apr 2017) Work on self-segrating smart dustbins featured in the Chennai Times!
(May 2018) Spending a summer at Kabeer Jasuja's group at IIT GN ((ChemEng)) working on carbon quantum dots for mercury detection!
(Apr 2017) Work on a mechanism for toilet seat sanitation featured in the Times of India!
(Mar 2017) Part of a team which received the GYTI Award from the Government of India for our mechanism for toilet seat sanitation

Selected Publications

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What Makes a Photobattery Light-Rechargeable?
Arvind Pujari, Byung-Man Kim, Hooman Abbasi, Myeong-Hee Lee, Neil C. Greenham, and Michael De Volder
ACS Energy Letters
July 2024

We demonstrate the physical principles of photocharging.

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Identifying Current Collectors that Enable Light–Battery Interactions
Arvind Pujari, Byung-Man Kim, Neil C. Greenham, and Michael De Volder
Small Methods
May 2024

Here, we provide design principles for the construction of optical batteries.

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Does Heat Affect The Observed Behavior of Aqueous Photobatteries?
Arvind Pujari, Byung-Man Kim, Farheen N. Sayed, Kate Sanders, Wesley M. Dose, Angus Mathieson, Clare P. Grey, Neil C. Greenham, and Michael De Volder
ACS Energy Letters
August 2023

Here, we show that the response of aquoeus photobatteries is dominated by thermal, rather than optical effects.

$effective refractive index$	Modelling core-shell plasmonic nanoparticles as homogenous systems: An effective refractive index approach Abhimanyu Swaroop, Arvind Pujari, Tiju Thomas Materialia August 2021 Here, we present a method that determines an effective refractive index for core-shell plasmonic nanoparticles allowing their representation as homogenous particles.
$effective refractive index$	Aluminium nanoparticles alloyed with other earth-abundant plasmonic metals for light trapping in thin-film a-Si solar cells Arvind Pujari, Tiju Thomas Sustainable Materials and Technologies January 2021 The light trapping ability of Al–based alloy nanoparticles in an amorphous silicon solar cell are studied, Al-In and Al-Mg are the most promising combinations.
$effective refractive index$	Al–Cu core-shell nanoparticles as an alternative to noble metal plasmonics: A computational study Arvind Pujari, Tiju Thomas Materials Chemistry and Physics June 2020 The synthesis of of Al–Cu core shell nanoparticles has recently been reported, here, their plasmonic properties are calculated.

Other Projects

$effective refractive index$	Optically Transparent Electron Transport Layers for Light-Rechargeable Li-ion Photobatteries Supervisors: Neil Greenham, Michael De Volder MRes Thesis, Department of Physics/Engineering, University of Cambridge May - Aug 2021 Here, we investigate whether FTO glass coated by ZnO and TiO₂ nanoparticles can be used as optically transmparent current collectors for Li-ion photobatteries in lieu of carbon felt. Published in Small (2022).
$effective refractive index$	Characterization of 2D WS₂ grown by NaCl assisted MOCVD Lab Rotation, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cambridge Supervisor: Stephan Hofmann Feb - April 2021 The the quality (through Raman/PL spectra) of WS₂ crystals grown with NaCl assisted MOCVD is correlated with the amount of NaCl used, through EDX spectroscopy.
$effective refractive index$	Detection of Ultra Low Concentrations of Exosomes Using Single Molecule Optofluidics Supervisors: Roisin Owens, Tuomas Knowles Lab Rotation, Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology and Chemistry, University of Cambridge Dec 2020 - Feb 2021 We utilize a single molecule optofluidics setup for the sensing of exosomes (a cancer biomarker) and the CD63 protein present on their surface. Published in Nature Communications (2023).
$effective refractive index$	Fabrication of crack-filled, free-standing IO membranes on aluminium and titanium substrates Supervisor: David Warsinger Summer Internship, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University May - Jul 2019 Flow-through inverse opal (IO) membranes are fabricated by growing them on aluminium and titanium substrates, followed by anodization of the substrates. .

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