Working in the Device Materials Group here at Cambridge, Professor Kar-Narayan’s research aims at developing functional nanomaterials and devices for applications in energy, sensing and biomedicine.

Her work involves piezoelectric, ferroelectric, magnetoelectric and thermoelectric nanostructures for harvesting and harnessing ambient waste energies, and extending these functionalities to sensing applications as well. She focuses on employing scalable and low-cost physical and chemical synthesis approaches to fabricate novel phases and functional nanostructures for incorporation into devices, with the aim of developing early-stage prototypes and eventual commercialisation of energy harvesting and self-powered sensing technologies. An example is the spin-out company ArtioSense Ltd., which she recently co-founded, seeking to deliver low-cost conformable sensors that can aid orthopaedic surgery through real-time force monitoring in joints.