News

News!

Best wishes to Vikram, who is joining Comenius University, Slovakia, for his PhD studies. He was a summer project student in our lab.

We welcome Malavika Sreekumar to our lab. She joined our lab as a PhD student after completing her Integrated M.Sc. in Chemistry from Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala.

Check out our new work chemrxiv.org/doi/abs/10.26434/chemrxiv.15006663/v1 titled as " Ground-state chemical reactivity under solvent-mode vibrational strong coupling". This study demonstrates that solvent vibrational strong coupling (VSC) significantly suppresses imine-forming chemical reactions—an effect directly measurable via NMR—highlighting its potential as a practical tool to tune reactivity in synthetic chemistry.

Congratulationsto Khushwinder Singh for qualifying his Comprehensive Examination July 2026.

Our group members Subha, Kavya, and Angelin presented their research at the first international conference on Chemistry, Structure and Dynamics of Molecules and Materials (CSDMM 2026), held from June 25–27, 2026, at the A. V. Rama Rao Auditorium in the Chemical Sciences Building, IISc.

We organised the symposium on the topic "Polaritonics for next generation materials" at the 2026 Spring Meeting of the "European Materials Research Society (E-MRS)" held at the Convention & Exhibition Centre of Strasbourg (France), from May 25 to 29, 2026 where Kavya, Harsh and Adiwitiya presented their work.

We welcome Soumalya Ghosal to our lab. Soumalya joined our lab as an Int. PhD student after completing his B.Sc. Honors in Chemistry from Hooghly Mohsin College under the University of Burdwan, West Bengal .

Anoop Thomas gave a talk at "Frontier of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics"conference organised by Rice Global Paris Centre at Rice University, Paris.

Khushwinder Singh presenting a poster at "Emerging Trends in Photodynamics and Photochemistry , 2026" organised at IISER Mohali,Punjab from 12-14 March, 2026.

We are pleased to announce that the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC) and the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) jointly hosted the "Cavity Quantum Materials" conference on 5–6th March, 2026. The conference brought together researchers and scholars from interdisciplinary backgrounds to discuss recent advances, emerging directions, and collaborative opportunities in the rapidly developing field of cavity quantum materials.

We welcome Mariyam to our lab. Mariyam joined our lab as a PhD student after completing her integrated Master's degree in chemistry from the School of Chemical Sciences at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala.

Congratulation to Adwitiya for her poster presentation at "International Winter School 'Frontiers in Materials Science' and Satellite Conference on Computer Simulations" organized at JNCASR, Bangalore, India.

Prof. Bert Meijer and Prof. Francesco Stellacci visited us at the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC), IISc, for a special Half-day symposium. During their visit, we had engaging scientific discussions on our ongoing research and emerging directions in the field.

We are delighted to share our Spotlight on Application Article, "Emergent Properties When Molecules Meet the Electromagnetic Vacuum Field", published in ACS Applied Optical Materials. The journal has distinguished this work as an Editor's choice, underscoring its impact on the emerging field of vacuum - molecule interactions.

We are pleased to share that Anoop Thomas has been honored with the "APA Young Scientist Award" at the "13th Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Conference (AOPC) 2025" held in Kochi, India.

Anoop Thomas giving a talk at the "13th Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Symposium (AOPS) 2025" in Kochi, India.

Kavya S Mony has received the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters Best Poster Award at "13th Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Conference" held in Kochi, India (22- 25 October, 2025). CongratulationsKavya S Mony.

Congratulations to Subha and Kavya for their poster presentation at "13th Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Conference, 2025" organized in Kochi, India. Their participation provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the ongoing work with the broader photochemistry community.

At the "13th Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Conference, 2025" in Kochi, we had a pleasant reunion with Prof K. George Thomas from IISER Thiruvananthapuram.

We are delighted to announce that Anoop Thomas was invited to speak at the 27th Solvay Conference on Chemistry, 2025 - "Exploring Frontiers in Chemistry"held in Brussels - one of the world's most distinguished scientific meetings. His talk focused on "Chemistry under confined spaces"; showcasing ongoing research from our group.

Our group had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Cyriaque Genet from University of Strasbourg, France. We engaged in comprehensive discussions with him on the ongoing research and future directions, and greatly appreciates his valuable insights.

Congratulation to Harsh and Adwitiya for their poster presentation at "The 9th Asian and Oceanian Spectroscopy Conference (AOSC-2025)" organized in Goa, India.

Anoop Thomas gave a talk at "The 9th Asian and Oceanian Spectroscopy Conference (AOSC-2025)" organized in Goa, India.

We are delighted by the visit of Prof. Jino George from IISER, Mohali to our lab and having an interactive discussion with the students.

We are pleased to share that Anoop Thomas was honored with the Best Teacher Award this year in recognition of his exceptional teaching methods and his ability to make Spectroscopy engaging and accessible, fostering active involvement and deep understanding among his students.

In our latest paper published in Angewandte Chemie (Manuscript link), we explore the effect of vibrational strong coupling of the ─OH stretching mode of the excited state proton transfer process. Our results reveal that the quantum yield of RO−emission and the ESPT rate constant improve by a factor of two under VSC, compared to the on-cavity, half-cavity, and off-resonance films. Our findings highlight the potential of VSC in controlling various types of chemical reactions that involve proton-transfer processes.

Kavya S Mony giving an oral presentation at SCOM5 Strong Coupling with Organic Molecules 2025 conference happened at University of Southern Denmark, Odense.

In our latest paper published in Nature Communications we show that electronic strong coupling can modify ground-state intermolecular interactions. Manuscript Link. Organic chromophores often self-assemble during device fabrication due to intermolecular interactions that can change their light-emitting characteristics. Our latest results show that electronic strong coupling modifies the ground state intermolecular interactions and subsequent emission properties without tweaking their chemical structure.

Subha Biswas has received the Nature Photonics Best Paper Award at "The 11th International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics - SPP11" held in Tokyo, Japan (19- 23rd May 2025). Congratulations Subha Biswas.

Sample text. Click to select the Text Element.