Meet our Associate Editor, A. S. Achalkumar
We are delighted to announce that for the first time we have Associate Editors from India on all three Journal of Materials Chemistry editorial boards. To celebrate our fantastic Associate Editors and our wider Indian community of authors and readers, we would like to introduce our new Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances, Professor A. S. Achalkumar.
To celebrate his appointment to our editorial boards, Professor Achalkumar has curated an Editor’s Choice collection focusing on Advances and New Avenues in Liquid Crystal Science. The collection is comprised of papers and reviews published in both journals and features many contributions from Indian authors. This collection presents the progress in several upcoming areas, where liquid crystals play a pivotal role to make a major difference – promising a bright future as they have done since the discovery of twisted nematic liquid crystal display in 1970s.
Associate Editor Spotlight: A. S. Achalkumar
Achalkumar Ammathnadu Sudhakar has been a full professor at the Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati since 2019, where he leads the Soft Matter Research Group. He is also associated with the Centre for Sustainable Polymers at IIT Guwahati. He received his PhD from Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) Bengaluru. He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Molecular Nano Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (2007 to 2009) and at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wakoshi, Japan (2009 to 2011), before joining IIT Guwahati. He was the recipient of Indian Liquid Crystal Society Silver Medal in 2019, CRS Silver Medal in 2023 and FRSC for his research achievements.
Prof. Achalkumar’s research interests fall in the broad area of liquid crystals, supramolecular chemistry, functional polymers, organogels and self-assembled organic semiconductors. He has published around 90 papers and 3 patents. He has several invited articles and hot articles to his credit. He is also serving as a Dean of Outreach Education Program at IIT Guwahati where is working to popularise science and maths among school children. He is a life member of Indian Liquid Crystal Society, Chemical Research Society and Society for Polymer Science in India.
‘I am looking forward to working with Editorial Board members of Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances to give my best to enhance reach and impact of these journals. I look forward to receiving more submissions from the Indian science community in these prestigious journals’
A selection of articles included in Professor Achalkumar’s collection can be found below:
Observation of helical self-assembly in cyclic triphosphazene-based columnar liquid crystals bearing chiral mesogenic units
Shruti Rani, Vidhika Punjani, Santosh Prasad Gupta, Madhu Babu Kanakala, C. V. Yelamaggad and Santanu Kumar Pal
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023, 11, 1067–1075, DOI: 10.1039/d2tc03847a
Topological defects stabilized by a soft twist-bend dimer and quantum dots lead to a wide thermal range and ultra-fast electro-optic response in a liquid crystalline amorphous blue phase
Nurjahan Khatun, Vimala Sridurai, Katalin F. Csorbac and Geetha G. Nair
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023, 11, 9686-9694, 10.1039/d3tc00861d
Anisotropic sol–gel transition and morphological aspects of a hierarchical network of nematic gel and a superimposed photopolymer
G. V. Varshini, D. S. Shankar Rao and S. Krishna Prasad
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023, 11, 7682–7696, DOI: 10.1039/d3tc00991b
Study of ferro- and anti-ferroelectric polar order in mesophases exhibited by bent-core mesogens
Susanta Chakraborty, Malay Kumar Das, Christina Keith and Carsten Tschierske
Mater. Adv., 2020, 1, 3545-3555, DOI: 10.1039/d0ma00678e
Fabrication of an anodized nanoporous aluminium (AAO/Al) transparent electrode as an ITO alternative for PDLC smart windows
Rahuldeb Roy, ab Indrajit Mondal and Ashutosh K Singh
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 923-931, DOI: 10.1039/d2ma01007k
