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Nilanjan Roy

National Institute Of Technology Silchar, Pennsylvania State University

ORCID iD 0000-0002-0386-4950
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About

Dr. Nilanjan Roy completed his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (Honours) from Midnapore College, affiliated with Vidyasagar University, followed by a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, where he carried out his Master’s thesis under the supervision of C. P. Rao in the broad area of materials and nanochemistry. He obtained his PhD in Solid-State Chemistry as a CSIR Junior Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur under the supervision of Partha Pratim Jana.

Dr. Roy is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam, India. His research lies at the interface of solid-state chemistry, crystallography, intermetallic compounds, and heterogeneous catalysis, with an particular emphasis on understanding structure–property relationships in structurally complex intermetallic compounds. His work integrates high-temperature solid-state synthesis, advanced diffraction techniques, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate atomic ordering, substitutional disorder, electronic structure, and chemical bonding in multinary intermetallic systems relevant to heterogeneous catalysis and atomic hydrogen storage.

A major focus of Dr. Roy’s research is the crystallographic complexity of intermetallic phases, including occupational disorder, long-range atomic ordering, twinning, modulation, and homogeneity range behavior in transition-metal-rich compounds. During his doctoral research, he addressed the longstanding crystallographic “coloring problem” in Pd- and Cd-rich intermetallic systems, leading to the structure elucidation of several previously unexplored compounds, including Laves phases, γ-brass derivatives, etc. His work involved detailed crystallographic analysis using single-crystal X-ray diffraction, synchrotron powder diffraction, neutron powder diffraction, and Rietveld refinement, combined with superspace approaches and group–subgroup symmetry analysis to resolve complex atomic structures.

While being primarily an experimental solid-state chemist, Dr. Roy's computational work employs plane-wave and localized-basis DFT methods using Quantum ESPRESSO, VASP, and LOBSTER to correlate structural complexity with chemical bonding and physical properties. This includes density of states (DOS), crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP), crystal orbital bond index (COBI), and charge-density analyses to quantify metal–metal and metal–metalloid interactions in intermetallic frameworks.

As a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University with Prof. Robert Rioux, Dr. Roy expanded his research toward catalytic materials and surface chemistry, combining crystallography with heterogeneous catalysis to design Pd-based intermetallic catalysts for selective hydrogenation reactions. His work involved catalyst synthesis, structural characterization under reactive environments, kinetic measurements using continuous-flow microreactor systems, and structure-sensitive catalytic analysis. He contributed to the identification of catalytically relevant pyrite-type and TiAl₃-type intermetallic compounds exhibiting controlled Pd ensemble effects and disentangling geometric and electronic effects in intermetallic catalysis . During this period, he also mentored graduate students and collaborated across chemistry, materials science, and chemical engineering disciplines. His contribution was recognized by the Penn State Office of Postdoctoral Affairs Award in 2025.

Dr. Roy’s current research program at NIT Silchar aims to establish atomistic structure–bonding–property correlations in structurally complex intermetallic materials through the combined use of advanced crystallography, superspace crystallographic approaches, electronic structure and chemical bonding. A central theme of his work is understanding how disorder, modulation, partial atomic ordering, and symmetry breaking influence the electronic structure and functional behavior of intermetallic compounds. His research integrates single-crystal and powder diffraction, superspace structural modeling, density functional theory (DFT), and bonding analyses to resolve crystallographic complexity across multinary intermetallic systems. As of 2025, Dr. Roy has co-authored 27 peer-reviewed publications, with additional manuscripts under review and in preparation, spanning solid-state chemistry, crystallography, superspace crystallography, intermetallic materials, and heterogeneous catalysis.

Employment

  • National Institute Of Technology Silchar Assistant Professor
    2026 - Present
  • Pennsylvania State University Post Doctoral Research Fellow
    2023 - 2025

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (31)