Faculty at School of Engineering

Upendra Kumar Pandey

Upendra Kumar Pandey

Associate Professor

School of Engineering


Contact Information

Dr. Upendra Kumar Pandey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence. He is an academic researcher actively working in the broad area of organic and flexible electronics, with a strong emphasis on charge transport physics, molecularly ordered organic semiconductors, and interface-engineered optoelectronic devices. Trained as a hands-on experimentalist, his research spans thin-film processing, device fabrication, and electrical characterization, translating fundamental physical insights into functional electronic devices.

Dr. Pandey’s research integrates concepts across physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering, enabling systematic understanding of how molecular structure, supramolecular self-assembly, and interfacial phenomena govern charge transport and device performance. His work over the years has contributed to the understanding of discotic liquid crystals, ambipolar organic semiconductors, and stability-critical interfaces in organic and perovskite solar cells. His studies report high charge-carrier mobilities and examine how material organization and interfaces influence device performance and stability. At Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, his laboratory actively pursues frontier problems in organic and perovskite solar cells, interfacial passivation strategies, and defect-mediated charge transport phenomena in organic semiconductors.

Dr. Pandey received his doctoral training at the University of Calabria, Italy, and subsequently held postdoctoral and faculty fellow positions at the University of St Andrews, UK, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, before joining Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence. His work has been recognized through several honors, including the JACS Young Investigators Award (American Chemical Society), the DST–INSPIRE Faculty Award, and his election as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Prayagraj, India (MNASI).

Research interests include organic and flexible electronics, with a focus on charge transport, interface engineering, and device stability in organic and perovskite solar cells. The work integrates supramolecular self-assembly and device physics to establish structure-property-performance relationships, enabling the development of efficient, stable, and scalable optoelectronic devices.

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  • Ph.D. (Science & Technology of Mesophase and Molecular Materials), University of Calabria, Italy - 2011
  • M.Tech. (Opto-Electronics), Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, M.P, India -2005

  1. Associate Professor, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR, January 2024 – Present
  2. Assistant Professor, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR, April 2019 – December 2023
  3. DST–INSPIRE Faculty, Indian Institute of Science, Bangaluru, October 2013 – April 2019
  4. Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of St. Andrews, Scotland UK, January 2013 – September 2013
  5. Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Calabria, Italy, December 2011 – November 2012
  6. Engineer, Quantalase Ent. Pvt. Ltd, Indore, September 2005 – December 2008

  1. Member, National Academy of Sciences (MNASI), Prayagraj
    National Academy of Sciences, India - 2024
  2. Young Investigators Award – Research
    Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR - 2021
  3. JACS Young Investigators Award
    American Chemical Society (ACS) - 2020
  4. DST–INSPIRE Faculty Award (5 Years)
    Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India - 2013
  5. “Bernardino Telesio” Doctoral Scholarship (Full Fellowship)
    University of Calabria, Italy -2008
  6. UGC Junior Research Fellowship (JRF–NET) in Electronic Science
    University Grants Commission (UGC), Government of India - 2003
  7. GATE Fellowship during M.Tech.
    Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India -2003

  1. Sharma, A., Behera P. K., Yadav K., Tarun, Yadav P., Sudhakar A. A., & Pandey, U. K. (2026). Anti-Naphthalene Bisbenzimidazole Columnar Mesogens as Interfacial Modifiers in Perovskite Solar Cells. Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Accepted Manuscript https://doi.org/10.1039/D5TC03553H
  2. Krishna, A., Tarun, Pandey, U. K., & Misra, R. (2026). Triarylamine-BODIPYs exhibiting record hole mobility: synthesis, photophysical, electrochemical, spectroelectrochemical, and charge carrier mobility studies. Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Accepted Manuscript,  https://doi.org/10.1039/d5tc03345d
  3. De, J., De, R., Bala, I., Gupta, S. P., Yadav, R. S., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2025). Molecular Design and Alignment for Ambipolar SCLC Mobility in Self-Assembled Columnar Discogens. Small Methods, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202401634
  4. Saha, H. K., Tarun, Mallick, D., Pandey, U. K., & Das, S. (2025). N-Annulated Indenofluorene: An Isomeric Motif for N-Annulated Perylene. Organic Letters, 27(50), 13846–13851. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.5c04350
  5. Sahewal, S., Sharma, A., Kumar Sharma, P., Mallick, D., Kumar Pandey, U., & Das, S. (2025). Synthesis of a Selena-Hybrid [5]Radialene Derivative and Exploration of Polycyclic Heteroterphenoquinones as Ambipolar Charge Carriers. European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 28(27). https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.202500344
  6. Tiwari, N. J., Tarun, Pandey, U. K., & Misra, R. (2025). Charge Carrier Mobility of Phenothiazine Functionalized TCBD Derivatives of Naphthalimide. Chemistry - An Asian Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/asia.202500259
  7. Wazid, M., Tarun, Pandey, U. K., & Misra, R. (2025). Donor-functionalized aza-benzannulated perylenediimide-based ternary blend efficient inverted organic solar cells. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 13(48), 24024–24035. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5tc03346b
  8. Yadav, K., Samanta, A., Ankita, Tarun, Das, S., Kanjilal, A., & Pandey, U. K. (2025). Tailoring sputter grown NiOx layer by synergistic surface passivation for efficient perovskite solar cells. Solar Energy, 288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2025.113286
  9. Kodali, P. K., Choppella, S., Ankita, N., Kumar, D., Pandey, U. K., Ravva, M. K., & Singh, S. P. (2024). Ambipolar macrocycle derived from spiro-xanthene and carbazole: synthesis, structure-property relationships, electronic properties and host-guest investigation. Chemical Communications, 60(82), 11726–11729. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4cc03440f
  10. Sharma, H., Ankita, N., Mittal, V., Pandey, U. K., & Das, S. (2024). Syntheses and Properties of Hole-Transporting Biindenofluorenes. Organic Letters, 26(13), 2617–2622. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.4c00630
  11. Yadav, K., Kumar Behera, P., Ankita, Tarun, Chavan, R. D., Yadav, P., Ammathnadu Sudhakar, A., & Kumar Pandey, U. (2024). Columnar self-assembled heteroatom bay-annulated perylene bisimide as passivating layer for high performance perovskite solar cells. Solar Energy, 278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2024.112762
  12. Behera, P. K., Yadav, K., Kumar, N., Gupta, R. K., Rao, D. S. S., Pandey, U. K., & Achalkumar, A. S. (2023). First example of ambipolar naphthalene diimide exhibiting a room temperature columnar phase. Chemical Communications, 59(40), 6028–6031. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3cc00321c
  13. Behera, P. K., Yadav, K., Rao, D. S. S., Pandey, U. K., & Sudhakar, A. A. (2023). Self-Assembled anti-Napthalene-3,4:9,10-bis(benzimidazole)s: Stabilizing Room Temperature Columnar Phase with Ambipolar Conductivity. ACS Applied Electronic Materials, 5(10), 5417–5421. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.3c01101
  14. Behera, P. K., Yadav, K., Shankar Rao, D. S., Pandey, U. K., & Sudhakar, A. A. (2023). Ambipolar Columnar Self-assembled Organic Semiconductors based on Heteroatom bay-Annulated Perylene Bisimides. Chemistry - An Asian Journal, 18(9). https://doi.org/10.1002/asia.202300086
  15. Bala, I., Kaur, H., Maity, M., Yadav, R. A. K., De, J., Gupta, S. P., Jou, J.-H., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2022). Electroluminescent Aggregation-Induced Emission-Active Discotic Liquid Crystals Based on Alkoxy Cyanostilbene-Functionalized Benzenetricarboxamide with Ambipolar Charge Transport. ACS Applied Electronic Materials, 4(3), 1163–1174. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.1c01251
  16. De, R., De, J., Gupta, S. P., Bala, I., Ankita, N., Tarun, N., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2022). Oxadiazole-integrated heterocoronene discotics as ambipolar organic semiconductors. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 11(3), 980–985. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2tc04144h
  17. Sharma, H., Ankita, A., Bhardwaj, P., Pandey, U. K., & Das, S. (2022). Exploring Indeno[2,1- c ]fluorene Antiaromatics with Unsymmetrical Disubstitution and Balanced Ambipolar Charge-Transport Properties. Organic Materials, 5(1), 72–83. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-2020-0308
  18. Bala, I., De, J., Gupta, S. P., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2021). Enabling efficient ambipolar charge carrier mobility in a H-bonded heptazine-triphenylene system forming segregated donor-acceptor columnar assemblies. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9(27), 8552–8561. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1tc01898a
  19. Dhingra, S., Bala, I., De, J., Gupta, S. P., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2021). An electron-deficient tris(triazole)-based discotic liquid crystal that exhibits fast electron transport. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9(17), 5628–5632. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1tc00866h
  20. Rani, K., Pandey, U. K., & Sengupta, S. (2021). Efficient electron transporting and panchromatic absorbing FRET cassettes based on aza-BODIPY and perylenediimide towards multiple metal FRET-Off sensing and ratiometric temperature sensing. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9(13), 4607–4618. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1tc00068c
  21. Sarkar, S. K., Kang, L. J., Pandey, U. K., Luscombe, C. K., & Thilagar, P. (2021). Triarylborane-BODIPY conjugate: An efficient non-fullerene electron acceptor for bulk heterojunction organic solar cell. Solar Energy, 230, 242–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2021.10.048
  22. Bala, I., De, J., Gupta, S. P., Singh, H., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2020). High hole mobility in room temperature discotic liquid crystalline tetrathienoanthracenes. Chemical Communications, 56(42), 5629–5632. https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cc01226b
  23. De, J., Bala, I., Gupta, S. P., Pandey, U. K., & Pal, S. K. (2019). High Hole Mobility and Efficient Ambipolar Charge Transport in Heterocoronene-Based Ordered Columnar Discotics. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 141(47), 18799–18805. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.9b09126
  24. Tarafdar, G., Pandey, U. K., Sengupta, S., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2019). Effect of structural isomerism in BODIPY based donor-acceptor co-polymers on their photovoltaic performance. Solar Energy, 186, 215–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.04.093
  25. Cheppudira Thimmaiah, P., Panda, A. K., Pandey, U. K., McCague, C., Dutta, P., & Bahrami, M. (2018). A New Approach to Compute the Porosity and Surface Roughness of Porous Coated Capillary-Assisted Low Pressure Evaporators. Scientific Reports 2018 8:1, 8(1), 11708-. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30090-9
  26. Hemaprabha, E., Pandey, U. K., Chattopadhyay, K., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2018). Doped silicon nanoparticles for enhanced charge transportation in organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells. Solar Energy, 173, 744–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.08.020
  27. Sengupta, S., & Pandey, U. K. (2018). Dual emissive bodipy-benzodithiophene-bodipy TICT triad with a remarkable Stokes shift of 194 nm. Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 16(12), 2033–2038. https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ob00272j
  28. Viswanathan, V. N., Rao, A. D., Pandey, U. K., Kesavan, A. V., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2017). Molecular-level architectural design using benzothiadiazole-based polymers for photovoltaic applications. Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, 13, 863–873. https://doi.org/10.3762/bjoc.13.87
  29. Alex, S., Basu, B., Sengupta, S., Pandey, U. K., & Chattopadhyay, K. (2016). Electrodeposition of δ-phase based Cu–Sn mirror alloy from sulfate-aqueous electrolyte for solar reflector application. Applied Thermal Engineering, 109, 1003–1010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.04.104
  30. Ruiz, C., Pandey, U. K., Termine, R., García-Frutos, E. M., López-Espejo, G., Ortiz, R. P., Huang, W., Marks, T. J., Facchetti, A., Ruiz Delgado, M. C., Golemme, A., & Gómez-Lor, B. (2016). Mobility versus Alignment of a Semiconducting π-Extended Discotic Liquid-Crystalline Triindole. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 8(40), 26964–26971. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b06241
  31. Sengupta, S., Pandey, U. K., & Athresh, E. U. (2016). Regioisomeric donor-acceptor-donor triads based on benzodithiophene and BODIPY with distinct optical properties and mobilities. RSC Advances, 6(77), 73645–73649. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ra16791h
  32. Cortizo-Lacalle, D., Howells, C. T., Pandey, U. K., Cameron, J., Findlay, N. J., Inigo, A. R., Tuttle, T., Skabara, P. J., & Samuel, I. D. W. (2014). Solution processable diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) cored small molecules with BODIPY end groups as novel donors for organic solar cells. Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, 10, 2683–2695. https://doi.org/10.3762/bjoc.10.283
  33. Benito-Hernández, A., Pandey, U. K., Cavero, E., Termine, R., García-Frutos, E. M., Serrano, J. L., Golemme, A., & Gómez-Lor, B. (2013). High Hole Mobility in Triindole-Based Columnar phases: Removing the Bottleneck of Homogeneous Macroscopic Orientation. Chemistry of Materials, 25(2), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1021/CM3033548
  34. Sassi, M., Crippa, M., Ruffo, R., Turrisi, R., Drees, M., Pandey, U. K., Termine, R., Golemme, A., Facchetti, A., & Beverina, L. (2013). Open circuit voltage tuning through molecular design in hydrazone end capped donors for bulk heterojunction solar cells. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 1(7), 2631–2638. https://doi.org/10.1039/C2TA00673A
  35. Pandey, U. K., Termine, R., Ionescu, A., Godbert, N., de Santo, M. P., Ghedini, M., & Golemme, A. (2012). Enhancement of exciton dissociation efficiency in bulk heterojunction solar cells by using an intrinsic photoconductor component. Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, 558, 148–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/15421406.2011.654183
  36. Pérez, A., Serrano, J. L., Sierra, T., Ballesteros, A., Saá, D. de, Termine, R., Pandey, U. K., & Golemme, A. (2012). A linear conjugated core for functional columnar liquid crystals. New Journal of Chemistry, 36(3), 830–842. https://doi.org/10.1039/c2nj20950k
  37. García-Frutos, E. M., Pandey, U. K., Termine, R., Omenat, A., Barberá, J., Serrano, J. L., Golemme, A., & Gõmez-Lor, B. (2011). High charge mobility in discotic liquid-crystalline triindoles: Just a core business? Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 50(32), 7399–7402. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201005820

International Conferences:

  1. Rao, A. D., Sandeep, S. B., Adiga, V., Garner, S. M., Pandey, U. K., Sengupta, S., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2018). Flexural and bending fatigue studies of perovskite solar cells on Willow Glass substrates. 2018 4th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Electronics, ICEE 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICEE44586.2018.8938024
  2. Tarafdar, G., Kesavan, A. V., Pandey, U. K., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2018). Effect of meso substituent on Optoelectronic Properties in BODIPY based donor acceptor Copolymers. 2018 4th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Electronics, ICEE 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICEE44586.2018.8938014
  3. Tarafdar, G., Sengupta, S., Pandey, U. K., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2017). Effect of structural isomerism on charge transport in copolymer of BODIPY and benzodithiophene. 2017 IEEE 44th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2017, 294–296. https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366361
  4. Tarafdar, G., Sengupta, S., Pandey, U. K., & Ramamurthy, P. C. (2016). Effect of structural isomerism on charge transport in copolymer of BODIPY and Benzodithiophene. Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2016-November, 1664–1669. https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2016.7749906

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  • Delivered a talk on “Perovskite Solar Cells: Status and Upcoming 10 Years” as a Resource Person in a One Week Online Workshop on “Research Methodology & Innovations in Electronic Science”, held from 3–9 July 2021 at the Department of Electronics, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
  • Delivered an invited talk on “Perovskite Solar Cells: Current Status and Upcoming 10 Years” for the R&D Unit of Reliance Industries on June 11, 2021.
  • Delivered an oral talk on “Mobility vs Alignment in Organic Semiconductors: A Case Study of Triindole-Based Discotic Liquid Crystals” at the 26th National Conference on Liquid Crystals, organized by the Indian Liquid Crystal Society at Chitkara University, Chandigarh, Punjab, from October 21–23, 2019.

  1. Core Research Grant (CRG), Engineering Sciences
    Funding Agency: Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
    Project Title: Probing the Effect of Temperature and Supramolecular Organization on Charge Transport in Columnar Mesophases for Organic Electronics
    Grant Amount: ₹24.97 Lakhs
    Status: Ongoing (2024-2027)
  2. DST INSPIRE Faculty Fellow
    Funding Agency: Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
    Project Title: Organic Photovoltaics Towards Future Energy Needs!
    Grant Amount: ₹35 Lakhs
    Status: Completed (2013-2019)

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