Dr. Arun Kumar Bar

Assistant Professor

Department of Chemistry, IISER Tirupati

Email: a.bar@iisertirupati.ac.in

Contact No.: +917384690522 (Mob); +918772500922 (Office); 0922 (Ext)

Room No: 303 (Faculty Office-VI)

Group Webpage

Research Areas:

• Inorganic Chemistry
• Organometallic Chemistry
• Supramolecular Chemistry
• Molecular Magnetism

Research Interests:

Our group mainly focuses on the cutting-edge research to address the problems, ranging from the very fundamental to applications, of molecular and supramolecular magnetic materials. We employ multi-pronged chemical strategies to improve the performance of the magnetic materials in view of their applications in modern technologies such as memory storage, quantum computing and communication, spintronics, bionics, etc. We design and synthesize smart organic/inorganic ligands judiciously to achieve metal complexes enforcing the desired chemical functionality and geometric topology around the metal centre(s). We use various spectroscopic, X-ray crystallographic, magnetometric techniques and analytical methods to characterize the materials both in molecular and bulk forms. Aiming to come up with new, potential materials, we perform chemical and geometric tuning in the molecular level for hierarchical rare-earth and transition metal complexes. We endeavour to develop novel synthetic strategies in order to tune the dynamic nature of the magnetic anisotropy axes of the rare-earth metal ions in multi-nuclear organometallic and coordination complexes. We pursue research on miniaturization and reorganization of magnetically anisotropic metal ions in the molecular level via supramolecular approaches. We also concentrate on synthetic strategies exploiting the point chirality and space chirality to superimpose magnetic remanence and optical chirality in molecular and supramolecular metal complexes.

Educational and professional career:

• March2019-present: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education Research (IISER), Tirupati, India.

• July2018-February2019: Newton International Fellow, School of Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry, University of Sussex, UK.
  Advisor: Prof. Richard A. Layfield

• March2017-June2018: Newton International Fellow, School of Chemistry, Manchester University, UK.
  Advisor: Prof. Richard A. Layfield

• Jan/2016-March2017: Research Fellow, School of Chemical Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India.
  Advisor: Prof. Vadapalli Chandrasekhar

• Jul/2015-Dec/2015: Research Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, India.
  Advisor: Prof. Sanjit Konar

• May/2013-Apr/2015: Post-Doctoral Fellow, Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination (LCC), CNRS, University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Toulouse, France.
  Advisor: Prof. Jean-Pascal Sutter

• May/2012-Apr/2013: Research Associate, Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India.
  Advisor: Prof. Partha Sarathi Mukherjee

• Aug/2008-May/2012: Ph.D. in Supramolecular Chemistry, IPC, IISc. Thesis topic: "Self-Selection of Discrete Molecular Architectures in Coordination-Driven Self-Assembly".
  Advisor: Prof. Partha Sarathi Mukherjee

• Aug/2005-Jul/2008: Master of Science in Chemical Sciences, A Grade, Division of Chemical Sciences, IISc.

• Aug/2002-Jul/2005: Bachelor of Science with Chemistry Honours, First Class, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, India.

Honours and Awards:

• Newton International Fellowship, Royal Society (2017-2019)
• Institute postdoctoral research fellowship, NISERB, (2016-2017)
• Institute postdoctoral research fellowship, IISERB, (2015-2016)
• Centre Franco-Indien pour la Promotion de la Recherche Avancée (CEFIPRA) Grant 2013 for pursuing higher education and research in France, LCC, CNRS, France (2013-2015)
• Post-doctoral research associate fellowship, IISc, (2012-2013)
• Best poster award, International Conference on Frontiers in Inorganic Chemistry 2011, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, India
• Best poster award, 12th Chemical Research Society of India National Symposium in Chemistry (CRSI-NSC)
• Junior Research Fellowship for pursuing Ph.D. and Eligibility for Lectureship, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-University Grand Commission (UGC) National Educational Test (NET) of India (2008-2013)
• Integrated MS-PhD programme fellowship, IISc, Bangalore, India (2005-2012)
• Qualified Joint Admission Test to Master of Science, Indian Institutes of Technology (2005-2007)

Selected publications :

1. Bar, A. K.; Kalita, P; Sutter, J.-P.; Chandrasekhar, V. "Pentagonal-Bipyramid Ln(III) Complexes Exhibiting Single-Ion-Magnet Behavior: A Rational Synthetic Approach for a Rigid Equatorial Plane" Inorg. Chem. 2018, 57, 2398.
2. Bar, A. K.; Gogoi, N.; Pichon, C.; Goli, V. M. L. D. P.; Duhayon, C.; Suaud, N.; Guihery, N.; Barra, A.-L.; Ramasesha, S.; Sutter, J.-P. "Pentagonal Bipyramid FeII Complexes: Robust Ising-Spin Units towards Heteropolynuclear Nanomagnets" Chem. Eur. J. 2017, 23, 4380.
3. Bar, A. K.; Raghothama, S.; Moon, D.; Mukherjee, P. S. "Three-component self-assembly of a series of triply interlocked Pd12 coordination prisms and their non-interlocked Pd6 analogues" Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18, 3199.
4. Bar, A. K.; Chakrabarty, R.; Mukherjee, P. S. "Self-assembly of a Pd6-molecular double-square and a Cu3trigonalbipyramidal cage via a new tripodal flexible ligand" Inorg. Chem. 2009, 48, 10880.
5. Bar, A. K.; Chakrabarty, R.; Mostafa, G.; Mukherjee, P. S. "Self-assembly of a nanoscopic Pt12Fe12 heterometallic open molecular box containing six porphyrin walls" Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Eng. 2008, 47, 8455.

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Teaching:

• CHM211: Inorganic Chemistry

• CHM725 Chemistry of d- and f-block Elements

Open positions:

Interested candidate can contact the group PI at a.bar@iisertirupati.ac.in

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