Kuntal Roy


Assistant Professor
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department
Room No. 302, Academic Building - 1/Infinity
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal
Bhopal Bypass Road, Bhauri
Bhopal - 462 066, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA
Email: kuntal@iiserb.ac.in

Academic Career

Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India (2017-)
PostDoc, Purdue University, USA (2013-17), Cornell University, USA (2012-13)
PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA (2010-12), Purdue University, USA (2008-10)
MSc, Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI), Switzerland (2006-08)
BE, Jadavpur University, India (1999-2003)

Biography

Currently, Dr. Kuntal Roy is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Tele-Communication Engineering from Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India (1999-2003). He held technical positions on information technologies in industries like Interra-IT, TCS, and IBM all in India during 2003-2006. He received his Master of Science in Embedded Systems Design from Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI), Switzerland (2006-2008). He spent two years (2008-2010) as a PhD student at Purdue University, USA and received his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University, USA in 2012. He held post-doctoal positions at Applied and Engineering Physics Department of Cornell University, USA (2012-1013) and at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Purdue University (2013-2017), USA. Dr. Roy's research interest is on nanoelectronic device physics and applications with focus on spintronics and nanomagnetics. He has published over 30 articles in refereed journals and conferences, delivered several invited talks in conferences and workshops, and served in the international advisory committee of conference on spintronics. His research works on multiferroic devices have been highlighted in Nature, AIP News, PhysicsWorld, NanotechWeb, and also selected by Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology. Dr. Roy is a senior member of IEEE and a member of APS, IEEE Magnetics and Electron Devices Societies, and has been a member of MRS, SPIE, and Phi Kappa Phi.

Kuntal works primarily on the physical operation of a binary switch for our future information processing paradigm that includes applied physics, material science, and engineering aspects. The primary obstacle to continued downscaling of charge-based electronic devices in accordance with Moore's law is the excessive energy dissipation that takes place in the device during switching of bits. Unlike charge-based devices, spin-based devices are switched by flipping spins without moving charge in space. Although some energy is still dissipated in flipping spins, it can be considerably less than the energy associated with current flow in charge-based devices. Unfortunately, this advantage will be squandered if the method adopted to switch the spin is so energy-inefficient that the energy dissipated in the switching circuit far exceeds the energy dissipated inside the system. Regrettably, this is often the case, e.g., switching spins with a magnetic field or with spin-transfer-torque mechanism. Kuntal has shown theoretically that the magnetization of two-phase multiferroic single-domain nanomagnets can be switched very energy-efficiently, more so than any device currently extant, leading possibly to new magnetic logic and memory systems which might be an important contributor to Beyond-Moore's-Law technology. It has the potential to produce an extremely low-power, yet high-density and high-speed, non-volatile magnetic logic and memory system. Such processors would be well suited for embedded applications, e.g., implantable medical devices that could run on energy harvested from the patient's body motion.

Kuntal's research works and interests also include multiferroic materials, topological insulators, giant spin Hall effect, spin-transfer-torque and spin pumping, spin-oscillators, skyrmions, optical magnetization switching, magnetic insulators, magnetic tunnel junctions, magnetocaloric materials, organic spintronics, spin circuits for developing systems and architectures, energy conversion (photovoltaics/thermoelectrics), low-dimensional nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, ultrasensitive sensors, Landauer limit of energy dissipation, neuromorphic devices and computing, quantum machine learning and computing.