And there is certainly a lesson for you in your livestock
- Qur'an, 23:21
Look! Look! Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better
- Albert Einstein
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
Since the early 20th century, scientists have been controlling and manipulating light with artificial photonic materials for numerous optical applications. However, millions of years of evolution in the biological world have developed its own photonic structures in the form of vivid ‘structural color’. For a long time, studies focusing on photonic micro and nano-architectures of biological origin were regarded as exotic and were popular mostly among biologists with an affinity for physics. My research vision is to derive new bio-inspired construction principles for the production of sustainable devices and systems by interpreting the biological nanophotonic surfaces simply from an engineer’s perspective.
My research lies at the intersection of biology and engineering leveraging new physics, fabrication strategies, and materials inspired by evolutionary biology in order to devise functional elements for imaging, optoelectronic, and healthcare applications. My work adopts an interdisciplinary approach in order to investigate and replicate such photonic structures; spanning across spectroscopies of various biological systems, computational optics, and subsequent nano-engineering of the nature-inspired optical surfaces for applications ranging from renewable energy to biomedical sector.
