I am a Graduate Student in the Engineering Physics Department at University of Virginia.I am currently pursuing my doctoral research work under the guidance of Dr Ian Harrison at the Chemistry Department. All the gears are in place to finish up my thesis and graduate in early Spring 2009.

All my research till date has been related to surface science in one way or the other. Hence I can be refered to as a surface scientist. My research experiences includes, but not limited to, Mass and Infra-red Spectroscopy and working with Nd-Yag and Excimer Lasers. During my M.S. in Applied Physics I received training to work with Scannig Tunneling Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy. Both are procedures to image clean surfaces at an atomic scale.

Majority of these experiments are carried out in highly controlled experimental setups with ultra high vacuum. This is done to reduce the number of variables and study the steps of atomic interactions at the surface.

There are many ways to study surface characteristics for single crystals, whether it is for application for catalytics purposes or for semiconductor growth purposes. Microscopy is one of the more interesting ways to study atomic behavior on surfaces as it can image the charge distribution, which can further give us an idea about the adsorption charateristics of evaporated metals or gases onto the surface...BLAH BLAH BLAH...I will be surprised if I havent lost most of the people by now.

Lets talk on a broad picture. Say for example we use computers in our daily life. If it were that we received it as a black box that gives us results, without the knowledge of what goes on inside the black box. To make the process more efficient, it would be highly beneficial to understand on the micro level as to what goes on inside the black box and how...and hence figure out how it can be further improved.

That is somewhat our goal, working in surface science at the atomic scale.

This website is designed to shed some light on my research work and my other interests