K S Narayan is a Professor and Sir J. C. Bose National Fellow at JNCASR. He is an academic researcher and has been active in the general field of molecular/organic/polymer/bio-electronics. He is a hands-on experimentalist, who has contributed to many research problems in applied sciences spreading across physics, chemistry, and biology and translating this knowledge into engineering solutions. Analogies across subject boundaries have helped his research to contribute across a wide range of research topics over the last three decades rigorously. His laboratory has come out with many unique findings including the first demonstration of polymer optical-field effect transistors in 2001. His lab actively pursues frontier problems in device physics, photophysics of solution processible semiconductors, solar cells, LEDs, transistors, and circuits. He has also contributed to the area of soft-electronic polymers in the biomedical arena of tissue engineering and for vision prosthetic elements. His present laboratory theme also explores advanced materials for integrating seamlessly the connected world with human sensory systems for a variety of biomedical applications and understanding it from a device physics perspective. In this regard, a host of modern materials offers a unique combination of optoelectronic and mechanical properties for sensing and stimulating neuronal activity. This possibility of triggering neuronal signals using these smart materials in a blind retina in his laboratory has opened up a route for utilizing these substrates as a prosthetic element. His other current pursuits include developing noise measurement and scanning techniques to predict the full life cycle of photovoltaic modules. His work has received international coverage (Physics World, Laser Focus World, Printed Electronics World, Materials Research Society Bulletin, Nature India).
Besides research, he has taken up the administrative mantle of Dean (R&D) (2011-2018) and was President-In Charge of JNCASR for a two and half years. He is a co-founder of a startup hbaromega (ℏw). Graduate students trained in KSN’s laboratory are pursuing flourishing careers in academia, industry and entrepreneurship.
© 2021, JNCASR, Jakkur, Bangalore, India