Kanwar S. Nalwa
(PhD, Iowa State University, USA)
Assistant Professor, Department of MSE
Email: ksnalwa@iitk.ac.in
Office: Faculty Building 411
Phone: +91 512 259 2141

Research Interest

  • Organic and inorganic semiconductors
  • Perovskite based solar cells
  • Organic/Inorganic Tandem photovoltaics
  • Nanomaterials and thinfilms
  • All organic multifunctional Biochemical sensors

Patents and Invention Disclosures

  • K. S. Nalwa, and S. Chaudhary, "Organic photovoltaic device with ferroelectric dipole and method of making same," U.S. Patent No. 10,038,142 (Granted July 31, 2018).
  • S. Chaudhary, K. M. Ho, J. M. Park, K. S. Nalwa, and W. Leung, "Textured micrometer scale templates as light managing fabrication platform for organic solar cells," U.S. Patent No. 9,401,442 (Granted July 26, 2016).

Selected Publications

  • J. Carr, K. S. Nalwa, R. C. Mahadevapuram, Y. Chen, J. Anderegg, and S. Chaudhary, "Plastic-syringe induced silicone contamination in organic photovoltaic fabrication: im- plications for small-volume additives",ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 2012, vol. 4 (6), pp 2831-2835, 2012. [American Chemical Society. Impact factor 8.1]
  • K. S. Nalwa, J. Carr, R. C. Mahadevapuram, H. K. Kodali, S. Bose, Y. Chen, J. W. B. Petrich, B. Ganapathysubramanian, and S. Chaudhary, "Enhanced charge separation in organic photovoltaic films doped with ferroelectric dipoles" Energy and Environmental Science, vol. 5 (5), pp. 7042-7049, 2012. [Royal Society of Chemistry. Impact factor 30.1]
  • K. S. Nalwa, H. K. Kodali, B. Ganapathysubramanian, and S. Chaudhary, "Dependence of recombination mechanisms and strength on processing conditions in polymer solar cells" Applied Physics Letters, vol. 99, 263301, 2011. [American Physical Society. Impact- factor 3.49]
  • P. Kuang, J. M. Park, W. Leung, R. C. Mahadevapuram, K. S. Nalwa, S. Chaudhary, K. M. Ho, and K. Constant, "A new architecture for transparent electrodes: Relieving the tradeoff between electrical conductivity and optical transmittance", Advanced Materials, vol. 23, pp. 2469-2473, 2011. [Wiley-VCH. Impact factor 21.95]
  • K. S. Nalwa, R. C. Mahadevapuram, and S. Chaudhary, "Growth rate dependent trap den- sity in polythiophene:fullerene solar cells and its implications", Applied Physics Letters, vol. 98, 093306, 2011. [American Physical Society. Impact factor 3.49] Also in Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology, vol. 23 (11), 2011.
  • J. F. Mike, K. S. Nalwa, A. Makowski, D. Putnam, A. L. Tomlinson, S. Chaudhary, and M. Jeffries-El, "Synthesis, characterization and photovoltaic properties of poly(thiophenevinylene) benzobisoxazoles", Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 13, pp. 1338-1344, 2011. [Royal Society of Chemistry. Impact factor 3.91]
  • K. S. Nalwa, J. M. Park, K. M. Ho, and S. Chaudhary, "On realizing higher efficiency polymer solar cells on a textured substrate platform", Advanced Materials, vol. 23, pp. 112-116, 2011. [Wiley-VCH. Impact factor 21.95] (Featured as news on materialviews.com)
  • K. S. Nalwa, Y. Cai, A. L. Thoeming, J. Shinar, R. Shinar, and S. Chaudhary, "Polythiophene- fullerene based photodetectors: tuning of spectral response and application in photolumi- nescence based bio(chemical) sensors", Advanced Materials, vol. 22, pp. 4157-4161, 2010. [Wiley-VCH. Impact factor 21.95]

Invited Talks

  • K. S. Nalwa, R. C. Mahadevapuram, and S. Chaudhary*, "Controlling defect density in polymer-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells by optimizing growth conditions", TMS 2011 - 140th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, San Diego, CA, Feb. 27 - March 3, 2011.
  • K. S. Nalwa*, "Increasing the efficiency of organic solar cells by photonic and electrostatic field enhancements", seminar at Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR, Nov. 8, 2010
  • M. Jeffries-El*, J. F. Mike, K. S. Nalwa, A. Makowski, D. Putnam, and S. Chaudhary, "Design and synthesis of new thiophene containing polymers for use in photovoltaic appli- cations", American Chemical Society 239th National Meeting, San Francisco, March 21-26, 2010.

Honors & Awards

  • Recieved 3 Intel divisional awards for innovations in contact and interconnect process devel- opment down to 7nm feature size in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
  • Awarded Research Excellence Award (to recognize <= 10% Ph.D. graduates) by Iowa State University in 2011.
  • One of the 12 graduate students in the country to recieve graduate student support of $1000 for attending USC-DOE conference on Materials for Energy Applications, Los Angeles, CA, March 30-April 1, 2011.
  • Research featured as news in Material Views ('High-Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells on Tex- tured Substrates' Dec 3, 2010) - a Wiley-VCH news service.
  • Research featured as news by The Tribune (Iowa newspaper), Science Daily, Physorg.com, Eureka Alert (AAAS, the science society) and Iowa State University, in Dec 2010.
  • Research featured in news by Institute of Physics ('Long metallic nanowires fabricated for transparent electrode tests', nanotechweb.org, Aug. 4, 2010)
  • Research poster nominated for Best Poster Award in Materials Research Society Fall Meeting, Boston, MA, Dec. 2009. (Total 10 nominees in 200 presenters).
  • Awarded the Best Bachelor of Technology Project in the Department of Materials and Met- allurgical Engineering (2007-08), by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
  • Was one of the 12 shortlisted candidates (all over India) for the prestigious Innovative Student Projects Award 2007, by Indian National Academy of Engineering at bachelor's level.
  • Received $200 cash award from IIT Kanpur (India) for publishing in a peer reviewed Inter- national journal (Journal of Applied Physics) as an undergraduate student.
  • First prize in poster presentation in XIVth National Seminar on Ferroelectrics Dielectrics 2006, I.I.T. Kharagpur, India.
  • First prize in poster presentation in Non Ferrous category, at NMD-ATM 2005 conference, Chennai, India.