Research work
Podila's research made many strides in fundamental understanding and applications of nanomaterials in energy, health, and photonics. 1) Energy conversion and storage: Podila's group has been endeavoring to develop highly efficient triboelectric nanogenerators ( TENGs) for converting waste mechanical energy into useful electric power; in addition, his group focuses on engineering defects and dopants in nanomaterials to achieve batteries (Li-ion, Li-sulfur, and Al-ion) and supercapacitors (based on nanocarbons and their hybrids with electrochemically active polymers) with high-energy and high-power densities. His work in this area led to many discoveries such as alleviation of quantum capacitance in graphene, wireless tribo-electric nanogenerators, inexpensive TENGs, and novel silicon electrodes for Li-ion batteries among other things. Through their research at the nanoscale, Podila's group has demonstrated the use of defects (including interfaces) for achieving novel functionalities. More importantly, his group successfully translated their research into scalable devices 2) Nanotoxicity and Nanomedicine: Podila's group is presently identifying mechanisms of nanotoxicity with an emphasis on nanoparticle-protein interactions and their influence on physiological responses to ultimately develop benign nanoparticles for medical applications. Podila's collaborative work previously developed an atom-thick coating for preventing blood clots on stents, use carbon nanotubes as drug delivery vehicles for cancer etc. Recently, Podila's work (in collaboration with J. M. Brown group at UC Denver) showed how atomic defects in materials could elicit varying physiological responses by linking nanomaterials, quantum mechanics, and toxicity studies. His work also unravelled the fundamental mechanisms by which plaque formation in many diseases such as diabetes etc can be stopped using nanomaterials 3) Biosensing and imaging: Podila's group developed novel surface plasmon coupled emission platforms (some of this work done in collaboration withSelected publications
*Podila, R., Queen, W., Nath, A., Arantes, J. T., Schoenhalz, A. L., Fazzio, A., ... & Rao, A. M. (2010). Origin of FM ordering in pristine micro-and nanostructured ZnO. ''Nano letters'', ''10''(4), 1383-1386. *Podila, R., Moore, T., Alexis, F., & Rao, A. M. (2013). Graphene coatings for enhanced hemo-compatibility of nitinol stents. ''RSC advances'', ''3''(6), 1660-1665. *Podila, R., Brown, J. M., Kahru, A., & Rao, A. M. (2014). Illuminating nano-bio interactions: A spectroscopic perspective. ''Mrs Bulletin'', ''39''(11), 990-995. *Zhu, J., Childress, A. S., Karakaya, M., Dandeliya, S., Srivastava, A., Lin, Y., ... & Podila, R. (2016). Defect‐engineered graphene for high‐energy‐and high‐power‐density supercapacitor devices. ''Advanced Materials'', ''28''(33), 7185-7192. *Wei, P. C., Bhattacharya, S., He, J., Neeleshwar, S., Podila, R., Chen, Y. Y., & Rao, A. M. (2016). The intrinsic thermal conductivity of SnSe. ''Nature'', ''539''(7627), E1-E2. *Dong, Y., Chertopalov, S., Maleski, K., Anasori, B., Hu, L., Bhattacharya, S., ... & Podila, R. (2018). Saturable absorption in 2D Ti3C2 MXene thin films for passive photonic diodes. ''Advanced Materials'', ''30''(10), 1705714. *Dong, Y., Mallineni, S. S. K., Maleski, K., Behlow, H., Mochalin, V. N., Rao, A. M., ... & Podila, R. (2018). Metallic MXenes: A new family of materials for flexible triboelectric nanogenerators. ''Nano Energy'', ''44'', 103-110. *Mallineni, S. S. K., Dong, Y., Behlow, H., Rao, A. M., & Podila, R. (2018). A wireless triboelectric nanogenerator. ''Advanced Energy Materials'', ''8''(10), 1702736.Honors
Podila became a certified fellow of the Institute for Advanced Physics in 2020. He is actively involved in education and outreach through science workshops for K-12.References
External links
* Indian scientists Clemson University faculty American physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{Improve categories, date=September 2021