A. K. Ghatak

Leibniz-Institute for New Materials, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Papers

Total Citations

109

H-Index

About

A. K. Ghatak is a leading figure in the mechanics of soft materials and bioinspired adhesion, with a particular focus on designing elastomeric surfaces with tunable stickiness. His most cited work, "Fibrillar Elastomeric Micropatterns Create Tunable Adhesion Even to Rough Surfaces" (2016, 103 citations), is a landmark contribution to gecko-inspired dry adhesives. Ghatak demonstrated that micropatterned fibrils could maintain strong, reversible adhesion on rough, non-ideal surfaces—a critical step toward real-world applications in robotics and manufacturing. More recently, his innovative study "Two-Phase Composite Adhesive with Viscoelastic Inclusion" (2022) introduced a novel method to create soft composites with embedded viscoelastic inclusions by exploiting platinum catalyst poisoning in PDMS. This work opens new pathways for designing adhesives with tailored energy dissipation. Ghatak’s research elegantly bridges fundamental polymer physics with practical engineering challenges, and his high-impact publications continue to shape the fields of contact mechanics and biomimetic surface design.