Research

Graphene, the two-dimensional (2D) nano-allotropes of carbon consisting of single-layer of sp2 carbon atoms have drawn tremendous attention in academic as well as industrial R & D in last more than one decade or so; due to its’ unique properties such as high surface area, excellent electrical conductivity, superior thermal & mechanical strength and related properties. Interestingly, in recent days assembly of 2D graphene sheets into high-surface area hollow spheres has drawn again significant attraction of this wonder material due to its’ potential eligibility in the broader application areas ranging from catalyst support to drug-delivery and specially major emphasis in the field of energy storage where fabricating electrode materials with graphene for energy storage devices such as super capacitors and batteries has become a major thrust in this research area and great amount of attentions have been employed in this particular research field is also on the possibility of assembly of 2D graphene sheets into hollow spheres for developing core/shell structure composites also for this particular applications. In this proposed research plan; micro-structural, functional aspects as well as potential usage of these Graphene-based composite materials in energy storage devices will be explored in great details.

A relative measurement of blood flow changes is of major importance in the clinical domain for quantifying vascular change due to tissue injury or diseased condition. In superficial organs (viz. eye, skin), changes in blood flow are caused by different risk factors: atherosclerosis, blockage due to abnormal deposition of extracellular matrix within blood vessels, high cholesterol profile, diabetes and other inflammatory disorders like burn injury, wounds, as well as growth of benign and malignant tumours (lesions). These pathological conditions cause improper supply of oxygen and nutrients to the cells, affecting the functional and structural integrity of vasculature. In this context, Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) provides a low-cost solution with high resolution probing facility among blood flow imaging modalities like: laser Doppler flowmetry, Doppler optical coherence tomography, polarization spectroscopy, photo-acoustic tomography, magnetic resonance imaging etc. This work presents speckle contrast imaging technique for in vivo imaging of microvasculature and blood perfusion in different physiological conditions. The objective is to develop computational algorithms for processing speckle images and evaluates its efficacy for quantifying changes in blood flow during abnormal state. This probing mechanism can be utilized for different applications like: detection and tracking of emboli in vascular model, changes in blood perfusion in skin flaps, changes in retinal blood perfusion due to external stimuli or various ocular pathologies, non-invasive and label free retinal angiography for the pathologies aggravating neovascularization, functional characterization of various cutaneous woundsand their stages of progression for periodic healing study etc.