I recently earned a PhD from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University in the Andrei Lab at Rutgers. My research focusses on the electronic properties of van Der Waals materials such as Graphene and Molybdenum Disulfide. A full list of my published peer-reviewed works is available here google-scholar profile.

Moiré potentials, lattice relaxation and layer polarization in marginally twisted MoS2 bilayers.

Tilak, Nikhil, Guohong Li, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, and Eva Y. Andrei. "Moiré Potential, Lattice Relaxation, and Layer Polarization in Marginally Twisted MoS2 Bilayers." Nano Letters (2022) link

Flat-band Carrier Confinement in Magic Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene

Tilak, Nikhil, Xinyuan Lai, Shuang Wu, Zhenyuan Zhang, Mingyu Xu, Raquel de Almeida Ribeiro, Paul C. Canfield, and Eva Y. Andrei. "Flat band carrier confinement in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene." Nature communications 12, no. 1 (2021): 4180 link

Low temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy system

The STM system used for my research is entirely homebuilt. It is capable of operating at 4.2 Kelvin. This involved making detailed CAD drawings for the insert, working with various vendors and the Rutgers Machine shop. Some of the major design considerations were keeping the heat load into the cryostat to a minimum to lower cryogen consumption. Special care was therefore taken when selecting materials and designing appropriate radiation baffles.

Study of Charge Density Waves in 1T-TaS2

Altvater, Michael A., Nikhil Tilak, Skandaprasad Rao, Guohong Li, Choong-Jae Won, Sang-Wook Cheong, and Eva Y. Andrei. "Charge Density Wave Vortex Lattice Observed in Graphene-Passivated 1T-TaS2 by Ambient Scanning Tunneling Microscopy." Nano Letters 21, no. 14 (2021): 6132-6138. link

Altvater, Michael A., Nikhil Tilak, Skandaprasad Rao, Guohong Li, Choong-Jae Won, Sang-Wook Cheong, and Eva Y. Andrei. "Observation of a topological defect lattice in the charge density wave of 1T-TaS2." Applied Physics Letters 119, no. 12 (2021): 121601.link

Altvater, Michael A., Sheng-Hsiung Hung, Nikhil Tilak, Choong-Jae Won, Guohong Li, Sang-Wook Cheong, Chung-Hou Chung, Horng-Tay Jeng, and Eva Y. Andrei. "Revealing the Charge Density Wave Proximity Effect in Graphene on 1T-TaS2." arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.09195 (2022).link

Catalyst free growth of ZnO nanowires on graphene and graphene oxide and its enhanced photoluminescence and photoresponse

Biroju, Ravi K., Nikhil Tilak, Gone Rajender, S. Dhara, and P. K. Giri. "Catalyst free growth of ZnO nanowires on graphene and graphene oxide and its enhanced photoluminescence and photoresponse." Nanotechnology 26, no. 14 2015:145601.link </p> </div>