Projects per year
Personal profile
Research Statement
Dr Kumar [H-Index Web of Knowledge (WoK): 41, >6500 citations; Google Scholar: 44, >8500 citations] Dr. Kumar was appointed to a lectureship in Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2013, became a senior lecturer in 2019, reader in 2023 and has served as the Head of Centre for Quantum Materials Technologies in School of Mathematics and Physics since 2022 (He was Head of Centre for Nanostructured Media between 2020-22). Exploring novel phenomena in ferroelectrics and functional imaging have formed the core of his research career and he has made several key contributions to these fields over the years. He is considered an expert on nanoscale imaging of ferroelectric phenomena and has written a relevant editorial article for Nature (2014). At QUB, he has built his own research group working in novel dimensions of ferroelectric research which explores the underpinning physics to utilise novel functionality arising out of domain and domain walls in ferroic materials (with special attention to stress-mediated phenomena and electronic behaviour of domain walls). He has authored >100 peer reviewed journal publications, with a significant number in high-impact, high-visibility journals spread across the entire career. Publications include Science (1), Nature (1), Nature Physics (1), Nature Chemistry (1), Nature Communications (4), Physical Review Letters (5), Nano Letters (6), ACS Nano (7) and Advanced Materials (8). Over his career, he has presented 11 invited talks at reputed international conferences, 4 invited research workshops, and 8 invited seminars at leading universities and research laboratories. He has secured external funding as PI for 6 external research grants amounting to ~ £3.5M in total value at QUB (across collaborations) obtained from EPSRC, Royal Society and NSF/SFI/DELNI. He was co-I on recently awarded EPSRC core equipment award. He was also PI on internal Central Research Infrastructure Fund amounting to £0.25M which helped him establish a state-of-the-art scanning probe microscopy lab with unique capabilities. He acquired a unique £0.5M Horiba NV-Centre microscope in 2021 as University Lead to launch novel research ambitions. He has co-organised a session within the Physical Sciences programme at the Microscience Microscopy Congress (mmc2015), was a member of the local organising committee for ISIF-2019 and is co-organising FerroUK meeting in 2025. He is a member of the Institute of Physics (MInstP) and serves as secretary of Ferroelectric UK. He has directly supervised 6 PhD students to completion (four under current supervision) and 4 PDRAs (two under current supervision).
Research Interests
Ferroelectrics, Scanning Probe Microscopy, Local electrochemistry in Batteries & Fuel cells, Nonlinear Optics
Other
Funded Research Projects
2024 (co-PI), Funded by EPSRC, 2024-26 (Total institutional award £400k, Award component £54k)
Processing-Driven Nucleation Mediated Control for Manufacturing Phase-Pure Ferroelectric Hafnia (PI, The joint proposal across three countries is funded for £1.0 M in total) Funded by DELNI/SFI/NSF (Grant No. USI 205), 2023-25.
Antiferroelectricity, Ferrielectricity and Ferroelectricity in the Archetypal Antiferroelectric PbZrO3 at small scale (PI, The joint proposal across three countries is funded for £1.2M in total) Funded by DELNI/SFI/NSF (Grant No. USI 211), 2022-26
- Quantitative Hall Voltage mapping at conducting Ferroelectric domain walls: A novel approach to extracting conduction mechanisms on the nanoscale (PI ), Funded by EPSRC (Grant No. EP/S037179/1), 2019-20
- Far-from-Equilibrium Processing of ferroelectric thin films on glass and polymeric substrates (PI, The joint proposal across three countries is funded for $ 1M in total) Funded by DELNI/SFI/NSF (Grant No. USI 082), 2016-19
- Investigating Pressure induced conducting states on the nanoscale : A novel approach to nano-circuitry (PI, £100K ), Funded by EPSRC (Grant No. EP/N018389/1), 2016-17
-Probing local ionic transport in Li-ion battery cathodes (PI, £13K)
Funded by Royal Society (Grant No. Royal Society RG130604), 2014-15
Teaching
PHY 4029 (Synoptic Physics), 2014-2016
PHY 3012/3002 (Solid State Physics), 2015 and 2023-Present
PHY 9032 (Materials Characterisation, Online MSc Course), 2015-17
PHY 9033 (Materials Characterisation Case Study, Online MSc ), 2015-17
PHY4024/4009 (Physics of Materials Characterisation), 2017-Present
PHY 2004 (EM and Optics), 2024-25
PHY 7001 (Microstructure in Materials), 2019-2024
PHY 7021 (Functional Materials), 2019-2024
Physics Level 1,2 and 3 Labs for undergraduate students, 2013- Present
Level 4 MSci Projects, 2013- Present
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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- 1 Similar Profiles
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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R1392CMM: Probing local ionic transport in li-ion battery cathodes
Kumar, A. (PI)
03/03/2014 → 28/02/2015
Project: Research
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R3730CMM: Far-From-Equilibrium Processing of Ferroelectric Thin Films on Glass and Polymeric Substrates
Kumar, A. (PI)
01/10/2015 → 15/01/2019
Project: Research
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R1713QMT: Core Equipment Award - Dedicated Lift-out tool
Arredondo, M. (PI), Kumar, A. (CoI), Murphy, A. (CoI) & Woods, R. (CoI)
10/12/2024 → …
Project: Research
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R3480CMM: Processing-Driven Nucleation Mediated Control for Manufacturing Phase-Pure Ferroelectric Hafnia
Kumar, A. (PI)
10/01/2023 → …
Project: Research
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Measuring oxygen reduction/evolution reactions on the nanoscale
Kumar, A., Ciucci, F., Morozovska, A. N., Kalinin, S. V. & Jesse, S., Sept 2011, In: Nature chemistry. 3, 9, p. 707-713 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
234 Citations (Scopus) -
Intermittency, quasiperiodicity and chaos in probe-induced ferroelectric domain switching
Ievlev, A. V., Jesse, S., Morozovska, A. N., Strelcov, E., Eliseev, E. A., Pershin, Y. V., Kumar, A., Shur, V. Y. & Kalinin, S. V., Jan 2014, In: Nature Physics. 10, p. 59-66 8 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
130 Citations (Scopus) -
Thermotropic phase boundaries in classic ferroelectrics
Lummen, T. T. A., Gu, Y., Wang, J., Lei, S., Xue, F., Kumar, A., Barnes, A. T., Barnes, E., Denev, S., Belianinov, A., Holt, M., Morozovska, A. N., Kalinin, S. V., Chen, L.-Q. & Gopalan, V., 20 Jan 2014, In: Nature Communications. 5, 3172.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile118 Citations (Scopus)344 Downloads (Pure) -
A Strain-Driven Morphotropic Phase Boundary in BiFeO3
Zeches, R. J., Rossell, M. D., Zhang, J. X., Hatt, A. J., He, Q., Yang, C.-H., Kumar, A., Wang, C. H., Melville, A., Adamo, C., Sheng, G., Chu, Y.-H., Ihlefeld, J. F., Erni, R., Ederer, C., Gopalan, V., Chen, L. Q., Schlom, D. G., Spaldin, N. A. & Martin, L. W. & 1 others, , 13 Nov 2009, In: Science. 326, 5955, p. 977-980 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
1103 Citations (Scopus) -
AFM-based functional tomography – to mill or not to mill, that is the question!
Sharma, N., Holsgrove, K. M., Dalzell, J., McCluskey, C. J., He, J., Meier, D., Prabhakaran, D., Rodriguez, B. J., McQuaid, R. G. P., Gregg, J. M. & Kumar, A., 15 Jan 2025, (Early online date) In: Advanced Materials Interfaces. 9 p., 2400813.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile24 Downloads (Pure)
Datasets
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Dataset for "High Resolution Spatial Mapping of the Electrocaloric Effect in a Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor using Scanning Thermal Microscopy"
Baxter, O. (Creator), Kumar, A. (Contributor), Gregg, M. (Contributor) & McQuaid, R. (Supervisor), Queen's University Belfast, 31 Dec 2023
DOI: 10.17034/5f9008fd-3bc6-429c-b54e-f62b20ced5e5
Dataset
File -
Dataset for "Ferroelectric Domain Wall p-n Junctions"
Maguire, J. (Creator), McCluskey, C. (Contributor), Holsgrove, K. (Contributor), Suna, A. (Contributor), Kumar, A. (Contributor), McQuaid, R. (Contributor) & Gregg, M. (Supervisor), Queen's University Belfast, 01 Jan 2024
DOI: 10.17034/7b295b79-6713-47bf-a850-02dee05907e8
Dataset
File
Prizes
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2011 Microscopy Today Innovation Award
Kumar, A. (Recipient), 2012
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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Activities
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Materials Research Society Spring Meeting 2014
Kumar, A. (Invited speaker)
22 Apr 2014Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Nanoscale (Journal)
Kumar, A. (Peer reviewer)
2014 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Publication peer-review
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Applied Physics Letters (Journal)
Kumar, A. (Peer reviewer)
2010 → 2013Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Publication peer-review
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Hosting Work Experience Student
Kumar, A. (Participant)
05 Aug 2024 → 07 Aug 2024Activity: Other activity types › Hosting a school group or open day
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High Voltage KPFM- A Novel approach to Investigating Nanoscale Electrical Phenomena in Functional Materials
Kumar, A. (Invited speaker)
26 Mar 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
Press/Media
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Queen’s researchers develop method to investigate advancement of sustainable cooling tech
Baxter, O., Kumar, A., Gregg, M. & McQuaid, R.
17/11/2023
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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New method in search for sustainable cooling technology developed at Queen’s University Belfast
Baxter, O., Kumar, A., Gregg, M. & McQuaid, R.
15/11/2023
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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New Spin to an Old Conundrum: Measuring Surface Potential Faster (and better)!
25/10/2023
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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QUB teams up with international researchers to solve manufacturing problem
07/12/2022
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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Domain-Wall Discovery Points Toward Self-Healing Circuits
McCluskey, C., Kumar, A., Maguire, J., McQuaid, R. & Gregg, M.
22/09/2022
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research