Research Interest
- Adhesion and friction on soft interfaces
- Fracture of soft thin sheets
- Bio-inspired approaches in design of engineering materials
Education
- B.Tech. IIT Kharagpur, 1994
- M.Tech, IIT Kanpur, 1998
- Ph.D, Lehigh University, PA, USA, 2003
- Post-Doctoral Research at Cambridge University, UK
- Post-Doctoral at Harvard University, USA, 2003-2004
Research Overview
Highly deformable, soft elastic, viscoelastic and poroelastic materials occur in many
different applications e.g. soft tissues, artificial organs, therapeutic patches, shock
absorbers, dampeners, platforms for micro-fluidic device, novel biomaterials in biology as
stems, roots and leaves, sponges, cartilage layers and bones and so on and so forth. In this
variety of situations these materials are exposed to many different forms of mechanical
loads, e.g. tension, compression, torsion, bending which, due to the large deformability of
these materials and their complex rheological character, can generate such responses which
are different from that commonly observed with the liner elastic systems. An example of such
a response is the kinking instability in a cylindrical rod of soft hydrogel, bent beyond a
critical curvature. It is different from the commonly observed wrinkling instability.
Besides, we have recently developed a microfluidic adhesive by embedding microchannels
inside adhesive layers. By filling these channels with liquids we have shown that adhesion
strength can be enhanced significantly. Our research on microfluidics has led to the
development of a simple technique for generating complex 3D microstructures inside soft
polymeric materials which have many potential applications, e.g. we have developed a novel
multi-helical microfluidic mixer for rapid mixing of liquids.
Awards
- SERB - Science and Technology Award for Research (SERB-STAR), 2020.
- C. V. Seshadri Chair Professor, IIT Kanpur, 2019-2022.
- Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering, 2018.
- C. N. R. Rao Faculty Award, IIT Kanpur 2016.
- DOST Professor S. K. Sharma Medal and Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award, 2015.
- Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, 2010.
- Mr. and Mrs. Gian Singh Bindra Research Fellowship, 2009-present.
- Diamond Jubilee Young Achiever's Award of the Indian Institution of Chemical
Engineering, 2007.
- REACH 2007 Symposium Research Award of the Indian Institution of Technology, Kanpur.
- Young Engineer Award of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, 2006.
- Alan Gent best student paper in Second world congress on Adhesion and related phenomena,
2002.
Professional Affiliations
Publications
- N Singh, A Ghatak, Enhancement of the Rate of Surface Reactions by the Elastocapillary Effect, Langmuir, 40, 17, 8771–8780, (2024).
- G Rawal, A Ghatak, Highly sensitive flexible capacitive pressure sensor with structured elastomeric dielectric layers, J. Micromech. Microeng., 34, 025012, (2024).
- N Singh, A Kumar, A Ghatak, Studying kinetics of a surface reaction using elastocapillary effect, Journal of Colloid And Interface Science, 645, 266–275, (2023).
- KK Kundan, A Ghatak, Coupled Effect of Axial Velocity of Insertion and Vibration of a Hypodermic Needle Puncturing into a Soft Brittle Solid ,Biomedical Materials & Devices, (2023).
- A. Ghatak, How does a lizard shed its tail?,
Perspective article in Science, 375, 721 (2022).
- N. Singh, A. Ghatak, Hierarchically Rough Surface used as Rewritable and Reprintable
paper,
arXiv preprint arXiv
:2111.12430 (2021).
- K.K. Kuhar, M. Jesbeer, A. Ghatak, Soft gel-filled composite adhesive for dry and wet
adhesion,
ACS Applied Polymer Materials
, 3, 3755 (2021).
- • G. Rawal, A. Ghatak, Effect of roughness on the conductivity of vacuum coated flexible
paper electrodes,
Nano Select
, 1 (2021).
- • N. Singh, Y. Jain, K. Kishore, A. Ghatak, Liquid spreading induced by in-situ
generation of metallic nano-particles,
Langmuir
, 36, 12237 (2020).
