Sandeep Kalathimekkad
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I am presently working as a Project Ass. at CeNSE, IISc Bengaluru. My research involves finding novel solutions in chemical sensing combining photonics and microfluidics platforms. After master degrees in Physics, Optics and Applied Photonics (latter two as part of Erasmus Mundus) from Cochin University of Science and Technology, Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, Germany and Imperial College London respectively, I worked on developing opto-chemical sensors combining fluorescent dyes with polymer waveguides at Ghent University, Belgium. Apart from my scientific pursuits, I am poet in English having published two collections of poems to my name and also a Kathakali-Carnatic musician having performed in stages worldwide.
Higher selling points of integrated photonics and microfluidics can be combined to form the most ideal candidates for electro-chemical sensing. The confinement of solutions to flow-channels and the added trickery to play with the flow rates can be expertly blended with a nano-photonic platform with higher sensitivity and specificity. Continuous monitoring of chemical processes can be extremely helpful in a wide range of fields like lab safety, reaction kinetics engineering, air quality control, medicine etc. and conformability of sensing device involved can be such an added advantage.
Several other methods of sensing can add to a multi node approach with various techniques, fluorescence for instance. Incorporating dyes to waveguides utilizing both evanescent field sensing and even matters of the bulk with uniformity in mixing have been proven as effective technology in sensing traces of gases, vapors and other volatile organic compounds.