Vikas Berry

Associate Professor

College of Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering

Research Interests

  • We study the electrical, structural, and chemical properties of innovatively designed nano- and bio- materials to enable the development of the next-generation applications in biomedicine, electronics and nanomechanics. We investigate the fundamental science behind the biological and the nanoscale phenomena to rationally integrate them to develop high functionality/sensitivity nanotechnologies. My research areas of interest are:
  • (a) Graphene Science and Technology
  • (b) Bio/Nano Interfaces and BioNanoTechnologies
  • (c) Novel Atomically-Thick Nanomaterials
  • (A) Graphene Science and Technology: Isolated from graphite for the first time in 2004, graphene is a "single atom thick" sheet of sp2 hybridized carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. We modify its chemical and structural attributes to control its properties for applications in ultrafast FETs, single-bacterial/DNA detector,making cells impermeable, and single molecule detector.
  • (B) Bio/Nano Interfaces: Hybrid systems built at the interface between bio- and nano-technologies leverage the hierarchical chemical-specificity in biology, and the unique quantum mechanical effects in nanomaterials. The combined characteristics of the bio/nano systems enable higher-order functionality, including bio-molecular mechanics, bio-sensing, bio-molecular electronics, physical phenomenon sensing using biological reactions, and biocomposites.
  • (C) Novel Atomic-Thick Nanomaterials: My group has been working on synthesizing and studying the properties of several (next-generation) atomically-thick nano-materials. We have developed a process for the exfoliation of single-atom-thick sheets of Boron Nitride (BN) via lattice protonation and are studying the surface-sensitivity of Molybdenum Disulphide (MoS2) monolayers (3 atoms thick).

At a Glance

  • Title Associate Professor
  • College College of Engineering
  • Department Department of Chemical Engineering
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