Areas of Research:

1) Plasmonics & Nanophotonics

• Junction and interface plasmonics; Single plasmon sources; Nonlinear plasmonics; Plasmon detection and Chiral nanostructures.

2) van der Waals Materials

• Light-matter interaction; Plasmonic–2D material hybrids; Transition metal dichalcogenides; Plasmonic surface lattice resonance.

3) Nanophotonics at near-zero index

• Epsilon and index near-zero regime; Hyperbolic materials and applications.

4) Quantum tunnelling junctions

• Energy and charge transfer studies; Light emission from tunnelling.

Contributions to Teaching:

• Assistant Professor (Nov 2023 - Present), Department of Physics, Kannur University, Swami Anandatheertha Campus-Payannur, Kannur, Kerala, India
• Research Assistant Professor (Oct 2023- Nov 2023), Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Chennai, India.

Research:

1. Professional Experience

• Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2018-2023) at National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore.

Project: Integration of electrically driven plasmonic components in high speed electronics, Funded by National Research Foundation (NRF), Singapore.

• Post-Doctoral Fellow (2017-2018) at IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India

Project: Smartening smart materials by nano-carbon incorporation, Funded by Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom.

• Visiting Research Fellow (2015 May–Aug) at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
• PhD Scholar, IISER, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

Thesis: STM Light Emission: The Physics of a Nanoscale Plasmonic Light Source

2. Patents (filed)

• Electro-Optic Refractive Index Sensor Based on Light Emitting Tunnel Junctions; Vijith Kalathingal, Yongxin Guo, and Zhe Wang; Singapore Patent Application No. 10202301069R (filed on 17 Apr, 2023)
• Metamaterial Optical Demultiplexer for Broadband Emission from Plasmonic Tunnel Junctions; Vijith Kalathingal, Yongxin Guo, and Zhe Wang; Singapore Patent Application No. 10202301067V (filed on 17 Apr, 2023)
• Vertically Coupled Two-Dimensional Material-Based Light-Emitting Tunneling Junctions Over Silicon Nitride Photonic Waveguides; Zhe Wang , Yongxin Guo, and Vijith Kalathingal; Singapore Patent Application No. 10202301065Y (filed on 17 Apr, 2023)

3.Workshops /Seminars/Conferences:

• Invited Talk (October 2020), Dept. of Physics, Malabar Christian College, Kozhikode, Kerala, India. Title: Plasmon Excitation in Quantum Tunneling Junctions.
• The 15th International Conference of Near-field Optics and Nanophotonics, University of Technology of Troyes, France (NFO15) (August 2018); Poster: Nanoscale Tunnel Junctions: A Unique Forum for Plasmonic Cross-talk between Electrons and Photons, Vijith Kalathingal, Ben Johns, Robins Kurian, Paul Dawson, and J. Mitra.
• The 8th International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics, Taipei, Taiwan, SPP8 (May 2017), Poster: Surface plasmon polariton: Excitation and amplification using active tunnel junctions, Vijith Kalathingal, Paul Dawson and J. Mitra.
• INDIA NANO 2012, Bangalore, India (December 2012) Workshop on Electron and Ion Beam Lithography for Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
• JNC Conference on Chemistry of Materials, Trivandrum, India September 2012); Poster: Palladium based Schottky junction devices for ultra-high sensitive hydrogen detection, Vijith Kalathingal and J. Mitra.
• School on Plasmonics and Nanophotonics (Metain 2012), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India (2012); Poster: Absorption enhancement in photovoltaic devices by incorporating metal nanoparticles. Vijith Kalathingal, K. Bandopadhyay and J. Mitra.

Publications:

1. Upconversion electroluminescence in 2D semiconductors integrated with plasmonic tunnel junctions, Zhe Wang, Vijith Kalathingal (co-first author), Maxim Trushin, Jiawei Liu, Junyong Wang, Yongxin Guo, Barbaros Özyilmaz, Christian A. Nijhuis, and Goki Eda; Nature Nanotechnology (2024); doi: 10.1038/s41565-024-01650-0;  Impact Factor: 38
2. Engineering the Outcoupling Pathways in Plasmonic Tunnel Junctions via Photonic Mode Dispersion for Low-Loss Waveguiding, Zhe Wang, Vijith Kalathingal (corresponding author), Goki Eda and Christian A. Nijhuis; ACS Nano, 18, 1, 1149–1156 (2024); Impact Factor: 17
3. Phase Matching via Plasmonic Modal Dispersion for Third Harmonic Generation; Zhe Wang, Zhe Wang, Vijith Kalathingal (co-first author), Ho Yi Wei, Thanh Xuan Hoang, Chu Hong Son, Yongxin Guo, José C. Viana-Gomes, Eda Goki, and Christian A. Nijhuis*; Advanced Science, 9, 21, 2201180 (2022) Impact Factor: 15.1
4. Coherence Between Different Propagating Surface Plasmon Polariton Modes Excited by Quantum Mechanical Tunnel Junctions; Andreea Radulescu, Vijith Kalathingal*(corresponding author), Zhe Wang, and Christian A. Nijhuis*; Advanced Optical Materials, 10, 3, 2101804 (2022) Impact Factor: 9
5. Geometric Control Over the Edge Diffraction of Surface Plasmon Polariton Excited by Tunnel Junctions; Andreea Radulescu, Vijith Kalathingal (co-first author), and Christian A. Nijhuis*; ACS Photonics, 8, 12, 3591–3598 (2021) Impact Factor: 7
6. Optical Anisotropy in van der Waals materials: Impact on Direct Excitation of Plasmons and Photons by Quantum Tunneling; Zhe Wang, Vijith Kalathingal*(corresponding author), Thanh Xuan Hoang, Chu Hong Son, and Christian A. Nijhuis*; Light: Science & Applications, 10, 230 (2021) Impact Factor: 19.1
7. Silicon-Based Quantum Mechanical Tunnel Junction for Plasmon Excitation from Low-Energy Electron Tunneling; Fangwei Wang, Yan Liu, Thorin J. Duffin, Vijith Kalathingal, Siping Gao, Wenrui Hu, Yongxin Guo, Soo-Jin Chua, and Christian A. Nijhuis*, ACS Photonics, 8, 7, 1951–1960 (2021) Impact Factor: 7
8. Geometric Control over Surface Plasmon Polariton Out-coupling Pathways in Metal-Insulator-Metal Tunnel Junctions; Andreea Radulescu, Ksenia S. Makarenko, Thanh Xuan Hoang, Vijith Kalathingal, Thorin J. Duffin, Hong-Son Chu, and Christian A. Nijhuis*, Optics Express 29, 8, 11987 (2021) Impact Factor: 3.8
9. Cavity Plasmonics in Tunnel Junctions: Outcoupling and the Role of Surface Roughness; Thorin J. Duffin, Vijith Kalathingal*(corresponding author), Andreea Radulescu, Changjian Li, Stephen J. Pennycook, and Christian A. Nijhuis*, Physical Review Applied, 14, 044021 (2020) Impact Factor: 4.6
10. Efficient Surface Plasmon Polariton Excitation and Control over Outcoupling Mechanisms in Metal-Insulator-Metal Tunneling Junctions; Ksenia S. Makarenko, Thanh Xuan Hoang, Thorin J. Duffin, Andreea Radulescu, Vijith Kalathingal, Henri J. Lezec, Hong-Son Chu, and Christian A. Nijhuis*, Advanced Science, 1900291 (2020) Impact Factor: 15.1
11. Negative Photoresponse in ZnO-PEDOT:PSS Nanocomposite and Photogating Effects; Harikrishnan G., Sesha Vempati, K. N. Prajapati, K. Bandopadhyay, Vijith Kalathingal and J. Mitra*; Nanoscale Advances, 1, 2435 (2019) Impact Factor: 4.7
12. Novel Routes to Electromagnetic Enhancement and its Characterisation in Surface- and Tip-enhanced Raman Scattering, Paul Dawson*, David Frey, Vijith Kalathingal, Reyad Mehfuz, and J. Mitra, Faraday Discussions, 205, 121-148 (2017) Selected for cover page, Impact Factor: 4.4
13. Scanning Tunnelling Microscope Light Emission: Finite Temperature Current Noise and Over Cut-off Emission; Vijith Kalathingal*(corresponding author), Paul Dawson, and J. Mitra*, Scientific Reports 7, 3530 (2017) Impact Factor: 5
14. Scanning Tunneling Microscope Light Emission: Effect of the Strong dc Field on Junction Plasmons; Vijith Kalathingal*(corresponding author), Paul Dawson, and J. Mitra*, Physical Review B 94, 035443 (2016) Impact Factor: 3.7