Dr. Raj Kumar Roy
Assistant Professor, Chemical Sciences

Research Area:

Polymer Chemistry

Research Focus:

Our research group is multi-disciplinary in nature and situated at the interface of Organic, Physical and Material Chemistry. As a Polymer Chemistry research group, our motto is to design and synthesis of new functional polymers for targeted applications. We endeavour through development and adaptation of synthetic methodology along with extensive physical characterization to achieve our research objectives. Our major research activities are shown below.

(A) Functional polypeptides

Having the same backbone as proteins, synthetic peptides make interesting biomaterials. Polypeptides are often synthesized in one step using controlled ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of N-carboxyanhydride monomers (NCA), in contrast to discrete oligopeptide synthesis (SPPS). Among them we are particularly interested with polyprolines.

(B) Plastic multiferroic materials

 Magnetism and ferroelectricity are two key components for various technological applications and which are generally mutually exclusive in nature. However, it has been suggested that intimating those two effects could leads to an interesting cross-coupling phenomenon. In this context, our approach will be to organize the electric and magnetic dipoles on a foldamer scaffold to achieve the multiferroic properties in a plastic material.

(C) Folding of Periodically-grafted amphiphilic Polyamides

 Through-bond and through-space electron transport are two ways in which electrons can be transported in a material. Conjugated oligomers/polymers and their ability to transport electrons through bonds have been extensively used in optoelectronics applications for decades. However, in biology, long-range electron/charge transport largely relies on the spatial organization of π-surfaces such that strong electronic coupling between the frontier orbitals (through-space) of adjacent molecules takes place during molecular recognition in DNA, excitonic coupling in photosynthesis, etc. Electron transport through space requires higher-order structures such as proteins or DNA double helixes. It is for this reason that we strive to design new materials for electron transport through space.

Selected Publications

• “Comparison of Thermoresponsive Behavior between Polyproline and Periodically Grafted Polyproline toward Hofmeister Ions: An Explanation of Its Conformational Origin” Arjun Singh Bisht, Prabir Maity, Raj Kumar Roy Macromolecules 2023, 56, 11, 3922–3930.

• “Architectural Effect on Self-Assembly and Biorecognition of Randomly Grafted Linear and Branched Polymers at Liquid Crystal–Water Interfaces” Ankita Kumari, Ipsita Pani, Mohammad Umer Lone, Aditi Aggarwal, Santanu Kumar Pal, Raj Kumar Roy ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2023, 15, 26, 31233–3124.

• “Synergetic H-Bonding and C-T Interaction-Mediated Self-Assembled Structure Results in a Room-Temperature Ferroelectric Material Exhibiting Electric Field-Induced Dipole Switching and Piezo- and Pyroelectric Energy Conversion” Deepak, Zinnia Mallick, Utsa Sarkar, Dipankar Mandal, and Raj Kumar Roy Chem. Mater. 2023, 35, 8, 3316–3328

• “Folding of aromatic polyamides into a rare intrachain β-sheet type structure and further reinforcement of the secondary structure through host–guest interactions” Subhendu Samanta, Dibyendu Mallick, Raj Kumar Roy Polym. Chem., 2022,13, 3284-3293.

• “Design and synthesis of digitally encoded polymers that can be decoded and erased” Raj Kumar Roy, Anna Meszynska, Chloé Laure, Laurence Charles, Claire Verchin, Jean-François Lutz Nat. Commun. 2015, 6, 7237.