Viterbi Faculty Directory

Biography

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B.S. Chemical Engineering, The Cooper Union, 2002
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007
Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry, Harvard University, 2007-2009

Led by Dr. Malancha Gupta, the Gupta Research Group is interested in studying the mechanism and kinetics associated with initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) of functional polymers onto structured materials and liquid surfaces. The iCVD process eliminates the need for organic solvents and thereby offers a safer and cleaner alternative to liquid phase polymer processing. The iCVD process is not a line-of-sight process and therefore can uniformly coat a variety of structured materials such as filters, microfluidic devices, and pillars. Our group has recently demonstrated that we can deposit polymers onto liquids with low vapor pressures, including ionic liquids (ILs) and silicone oils. The liquid surface is mobile and unconstrained and thereby offers new initial conditions for growth and additional degrees of freedom which can be exploited to produce films and particles with desirable physical properties. We also use extremely low substrate temperatures to make membranes with dual-scale porosity. Our bottom up approach can be used to fabricate porous-on-porous structures with a wide range of chemical compositions and shapes. Our all-dry technique eliminates solvent-related issues and allows for the development of next-generation hierarchically structured materials for water purification and gas separation.