The Nanoscale Spectroscopy and Photoinduced Phenomena Lab

  • Research Highlights:


  • Photophysical characterization of new organic and inorganic molecules in microheterogeneous environments


  • We synthesize new biologically compatible organic and inorganic fluorophores, characterize them and apply in host-guest chemistry. Knowledge on binding of compounds to bio-compatible carriers and their subsequent transit followed by release to the target sites need to be known essentially to develop drug delivery.


  • Host-guest interaction and applications in biological environments


  • The bound guest molecules to corresponding hosts may change the morphology of the latter subsequently generating molecular suprastructures that create provisions for trapping ions. The dynamics of the process is understood using various spectroscopic techniques.


  • Synthesis and application of metal nanoparticles and nanoclusters in drug delivery


  • We synthesize noble metal nanoparticles and nanoclusters and apply them in drug delivery following biological compatibility. The metal nanoclusters show fluorescence signals as opposed to the nanoparticles that makes them usable as bio-markers. Guest-host chemistry can be applied to develop bio-remedies for various physiological malfunctions.


  • Carbon nanoparticles in photoinduced energy/electron transfer


  • Photoinduced electron transfer is a smart concept to learn as this encompasses various applications including energy harvesting devices. We use carbon based nanomaterials, including nanoparticles, nanotubes and nanoplatelets to look into interactions with various energy donating/accepting substances in view of understanding the underlying dynamics.


  • Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) and Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS)

  • These microscopy based techniques are used in our laboratory to justify the positioning of various guests in bio-compatible hosts, such as, lipid vesicles. Entrapment of the fluorescent species withing bilayers alters the inherent photophysics of the guests that are significant to understand before applications to drug delivery.

Selected Recent Publications:

  • A. Chatterjee, Ruturaj, M. P. Chakraborty, S. Nandi and P. Purkayastha, Biocompatible and optically stable hydrophobic fluorescent carbon dots for isolation and imaging of lipid rafts in model membrane, Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 414, 2022, 6055-6067.

  • A. Chatterjee, A. Sharma and P. Purkayastha, Development of a carbon dot and methylene blue NIR-emitting FLIM-FRET pair in niosomes for controlled ROS generation, Nanoscale, 14, 2022, 6570-6584.

  • R. Sinha, A. Chatterjee and P. Purkayastha, Graphene quantum dot assisted translocation of daunomycin through ordered lipid membrane: A study by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and resonance energy transfer, J. Phys. Chem. B, 126, 2022, 1232-1241.

  • I. Mukherjee, A. Ghosh and P. Purkayastha, Förster resonance energy transfer from carbon nanoparticles to a DNA-bound compound: A method to detect the nature of binding, J. Phys. Chem. B 125, 2021, 10126–10137.

  • A. Chatterjee and P. Purkayastha, The impact of lipid head-groups in GUVs on electron transfer by surface-adsorbed fluorescent gold nanoclusters, Mater. Adv. 2021, 2, 1343-1350.

  • S. Bhunia, K. Gangopadhyay, A. Ghosh, S. K. Seth, R. Das and P. Purkayastha, Arginine-modified fluorescent gold nanoclusters for Förster resonance energy transfer with hemicyanine dye: A biofriendly approach, ACS Appl. Nanomat. 2021, 4, 305-312.