{"id":61871,"date":"2021-02-17T14:32:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=61871"},"modified":"2021-02-17T14:38:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:38:08","slug":"sam-sarkar-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/sam-sarkar-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Is light right- or left-handed? NAU doctoral student using nanotechnology to answer this and other questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

As COVID-19 was ramping up worldwide, NAU graduate student Sam Sarkar<\/strong> was in India at an academic conference. The trip wasn\u2019t supposed to last for four months.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until June that Sarkar, a doctoral student in NAU\u2019s Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science<\/a>, could get a flight back to Arizona. With COVID-19 rampant, he wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d be allowed back into the United States even while on the flight back.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019d finally arrived, done the necessary testing and quarantining and returned to the lab, eager to pick up his research, Sarkar got another surprise: The machines in the physics lab needed to be repaired before he could get back to work.<\/p>\n

So that was his 2020. But the materials scientist is back in the swing of his research, ready to tackle questions most don\u2019t even know to ask.<\/p>\n

Sarkar, who is on his third graduate degree\u2014he has master\u2019s degrees in computer science and nanotechnology\u2014studies nanotechnology; his primary research focus is developing ways to control circular dichroism (CD) at ultraviolet wavelengths by changing the morphology of chiral nanostructures.<\/p>\n

Essentially, light can exist in\u00a0two\u00a0states of “circular polarization,” where the electric field can rotate as it propagates in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion. Materials exhibiting CD preferentially absorb one of these\u00a0polarization states over the other. Sarkar, working with physics professors John Gibbs<\/strong> and Ryan Behunin<\/strong>, showed through experiments and simulation\u00a0that nanohelices exhibit massive and controllable\u00a0CD.\u00a0Of particular relevance is that the demonstrated CD is in a range of frequencies that are highly relevant to biology that may enable new biomedical applications.<\/p>\n

How is light right- or left-handed? Read the study, authored by Sarkar, Behunin and Gibbs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sarkar\u2019s second line of research is in the area of molecular sensing using CD spectrometry. His goal is to find regimes where CD spectra is extremely sensitive and can detect changes in a small number of glycerol molecules. He also is attempting a novel p-n junction that exploits certain optical phenomena, which may be able to create a new type of diode with lower OFF current.<\/p>\n

Gibbs, who has been working with Sarkar for three and a half years, said the doctoral student has been taking the lead with research in recent years, looking at both fundamental science and possible applications. Sarkar has a long history in research, and his curiosity and willingness to tackle questions and problems help move his work forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Sam\u2019s previous experience in academia and in industry\u2014including starting at least one company that I know about\u2014gives him an unparalleled advantaged for a graduate student, he is truly outstanding due to his hard work, creativity and intelligence,\u201d Gibbs said.<\/p>\n

Sarkar also is working with Behunin on a tunable lasers project that they hope will make a much better laser material. Currently, lasers operate at a single wavelength; this project should help create lasers that are tunable and cheaper, which will make lasers more accessible. Sarkar\u2019s role in that work is to supply the nanohelices to create a metafluid.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis scientific abilities are top-notch and his work ethic is untiring,\u201d Behunin said. \u201cWhen Sam says he will do something, it will get done and it will get done with the highest level of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other researchers are working on applications of chiral nanostructures and applying it in other applications, such as detecting cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the nature of research\u2014you try to advance the field a little bit,\u201d Sarkar said. \u201cWhat\u2019s not to like about it? You get to do research with some good applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming to Flagstaff<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Gibbs recruited Sarkar to NAU from the Indian Institute of Science, one of the premier research institutes in India, which was founded by C. V. Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Raman effect. Sarkar\u2019s adviser in India had worked at the same institute in Germany where Gibbs worked as a postdoctoral scholar, and he connected Gibbs and his promising master\u2019s student.<\/p>\n

In addition to his graduate work, Sarkar branched out entrepreneurially in India before coming to NAU. Putting his computer science background to work, Sarkar started his own company based on the idea that business owners shouldn\u2019t need a doctorate in statistics to understand and use machine learning. Nanobi Analytics<\/a> helps businesses track their data, such as ticket sales, bus routes or email open rates, pulls in other data and puts all of it into context, automatically discovering the connections and providing analytics in a way that\u2019s easy for the non-savvy to understand and put to use. The company won the Microsoft BizSpark India Startup Challenge 2013, rising to the top of more than 700 submissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing all of the data together to use it in a way that businesses can easily digest and look into is innovative,\u201d Sarkar said.<\/p>\n

His educational experience here has kept him busy not only in the lab, but in other aspects of his work as well. For as broad as his work experience was that led him here, one aspect of a doctoral program surprised him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned is that I naively used to think that just doing the experiment is the main thing and writing is the easy part,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I\u2019ve realized it\u2019s exactly the other way around. Writing is way harder, and English not being my first language doesn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As COVID-19 was ramping up worldwide, NAU graduate student Sam Sarkar was in India at an academic conference. The trip wasn\u2019t supposed to last for four months. But it wasn\u2019t until June that Sarkar, a doctoral student in NAU\u2019s Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science, could get a flight back to Arizona. With COVID-19…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":61873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}