Draft:Mahi R. Singh

Mahi R. Singh is a professor in the Physics department at Western University. He has been awarded the Fulbright US-Canada Research Chair for 2021-2022

Early Life
Dr. Singh was born in 1949 in a remote village Bhamai in Hamirpur, India. His parents were struggling farmers and did not have the financial ability to support his higher education, however, he had ambitions for his life and revolted against his father’s wishes to be a farmer and continued with higher education after graduating from primary school. He received the highest grades in his B.Sc. degree in T.D. College campus. After that, Mahi R. Singh received both M.Sc. (1970) and PhD (1976) degrees from Banaras Hindu University in condensed matter physics.

Academic Career
Mahi R. Singh was awarded Humbold Fellow in Stuttgart University from 1979 to 1981. Between 1981 and 1985 he was a Research Associate and Lecturer at McGill University. From 1982 to 1983 he worked in High Magnetic Field Lab, Université Paul Sabatier as a visiting scientist. He also worked as Research Associate at University of North Carolina.

After that he joined the University of Western Ontario as associate professor in 1985. Currently he is professor in this university. He was also a visiting professor at Texas Center for Superconductivity from June till November in 1992. He also worked as a chief researcher at Superconductors Division of Hitachi, Tokyo between November 1992. During May and August in 2022, he became Fulbright US-Canada Research Chair in Vanderbilt University.

His visiting positions include Texas Center for Superconductivity(1992), University of Oxford(1993-1994), Dubna and Ioffe Institute Saint Petersburg(2019)

Nanomaterials and Nanocomposites
The aim of this research is to advance both the basic science and practical applications of light-matter interactions in nanocomposite materials. This involves theoretical design, modeling, simulation, and collaborative research to synthesize functional nanocomposite architectures. Nanocomposite materials are engineered by combining two or more semiconductor, biological, or metallic nanostructures, resulting in materials with diverse physical and optical properties. Notable nanostructures used in nanocomposites include quantum dots, graphene, carbon nanotubes, semiconductor nanowires, and metallic nanospheres, nanorods, or nanowires.

Nanophotonics, Plasmonics, and Polaritonics
Plasmonics focuses on the collective motions of electrons in metallic nanomaterials. Research includes hybrid systems made from quantum dots and metallic nanoparticles, as well as metallic nanowires and waveguides made from metallic nanoparticles. These systems can exhibit unique optical properties, such as multiple transparent states under certain conditions, making them useful for developing new plasmonic devices like switches, transistors, light sources, and integrated optical circuits.

Graphene and Carbon Nanostructures
This research area explores quantum optics and energy transfer in graphene nanostructures and carbon nanotubes. Graphene, a two-dimensional carbon atom layer, is combined with quantum dots (QDs) in a photonic crystal, which acts as a tunable photonic reservoir for the QDs. These structures have applications in optical information processing, communication networks, sensors, and solar energy harvesting. The interaction between the QD and graphene can be manipulated using nonlinear photonic crystals.

Metallic Nanostructures
The study of energy transfer and photoluminescence in donor and acceptor quantum dots embedded in nonlinear photonic crystals involves the dipole-dipole interaction. The nonlinearity of the photonic crystal allows for control of energy transfer and photoluminescence via a pump field, aligning with experimental findings. This hybrid system has potential applications in fabricating ultrafast switching and sensing nanodevices.

Second Harmonic Generation
Research in this area focuses on the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor and metallic nanoparticles. Non-centrosymmetric metallic nanoparticles exhibit two-photon second-harmonic generation (SHG), useful for nonlinear optical microscopy. Noble metal nanoparticles produce enhanced local electric fields, crucial for processes like surface-enhanced Raman scattering and SHG. Two-photon excitation provides advantages such as higher spatial resolution and less photo-damage, with applications in nanoscale antennae, lenses, photolithography, and two-photon microscopy.

Photonic and Polaritonic Band Gap Materials
This research investigates the photonic, plasmonic, and optoelectronic properties of nanomaterials made from polaritonic/photonic band gap materials doped with nanoparticles. These materials feature an energy gap in their spectrum due to phonon/exciton-photon coupling or photon scattering with periodic dielectric constants. Applications include faster and smaller photonic and optoelectronic devices.

Metamaterials
Metamaterials are artificial materials with optical properties determined by their nanoscale structural components. These materials can have simultaneously negative dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability, leading to a negative refractive index. Research involves studying photoluminescence and spontaneous emission in quantum dots doped in dielectric substrate-metamaterial heterostructures. Enhanced photoluminescence and spontaneous emission occur when exciton and surface plasmon frequencies are resonant.

Biomaterials
Theoretical models have been developed for charge and spin transport in semiconductor nanowires, quantum wells, DNA nanowires, and DNA derivatives. These models explain existing experiments and include studies on exciton phase transitions in semiconductor heterostructures.

Selected honors and awards

 * NIST Visiting Researcher, NIST USA, 2022
 * Fulbright US-Canada Research Chair, 2020-2021
 * External Expert for Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, 2020-2021
 * Royal Society Visiting Scientist/Professor. 1993-1994
 * Chief Researcher, Hitachi, Tokyo in 1992–1993
 * Alexander von Humboldt Award, 1979