DrNiladri Banerjee

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics.

My research involves the atomic-precision growth of materials, advanced electronic and magnetic characterisation together with modelling to develop and utilise emergent quantum phases in low dimensional materials (thin films and van der Waals materials).

I received my PhD from University of Cambridge followed by a postdoctoral research associateship at Cambridge. During my postdoc, I was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

I currently serve as a Steering Committee Group member of the 'Atoms to Devices' (A2D) Research Area of the Henry Royce Institute.

My full publication list is available at:

Google Scholar

PhD projects for 2026 and 2027 are available: Please send an email at n.banerjee@imperial.ac.uk for more details on available projects.

Research


Materials are often intentionally modified to alter their properties and tailor them for a specific use. While there are several ways to achieve this depending on the application (e.g., doping in semiconductors), a strikingly novel way is through the proximity effect. Here, thin film or two-dimensional materials with entirely different electronic and magnetic properties are placed in close proximity to one another giving rise to collective properties that are radically different from the sum of the individual constituents. For example, conventional superconductors proximity coupled to tailored magnetic textured materials can give rise to an entirely new form of superconductivity. This unconventional superconductivity is mediated by spin polarised Cooper pairs with parallel spins in contrast to the anti-parallel spin-zero Cooper pairs in conventional superconductors.

Our recent review paper summarises the developments in this direction in the last decade. I am interested in the proximity effect in a variety of material systems with different, often antagonistic, electronic and magnetic properties like superconductors, ferromagnets, anti-ferromagnets, topological insulators and materials with strong spin-orbit coupling. Starting from the synthesis of these materials using atomically-precise growth techniques, my research involves advanced characterisation and nanofabrication to understand, stabilise and utilise fragile quantum phases that arise in these hybrid systems.