Biography
Aravinda Kar received his PhD degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a Professor of Optics, MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) and MSE (Materials Science and Engineering) at UCF. His research interests are (1) Laser-Assisted Manufacturing and Materials Processing, (2) Design and processing of semiconductor materials, laser doping, sensors, detectors, light-emitting diodes and photovoltaic cells, (3) Laser beam shaping and laser-material interactions, and (4) Thermal and materials science, advanced material properties, biomaterials.
Awards & Honors
- Member, Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL), since 2025
- President, Laser Institute of America, Two-year term (Jan. 1, 2024 – Dec. 31, 2025)
- A. Kar (Guest Editor) and Emeritus Prof. William M. Steen (Co-Guest Editor), Laser Additive Manufacturing Processes: From Cladding to Complex Parts, J. Laser Applications, March 2022 – April 2023, Tribute edition
- Arthur L. Schawlow Award, Laser Institute of America (LIA), October 2021
- Fellow, National Academy of Inventors (NAI), since 2017
- Fellow, Laser Institute of America (LIA), since 2000
- 2018 First Place Award (Poster Presentation): Eduardo Castillo, IMAPS Society, 2018
- 2017 First Place Award (Poster Presentation): Eduardo Castillo, ICALEO 2017
- 2017 First Place Award (Poster Presentation): Eduardo Castillo, IMAPS Society 2017
- 2005 Elected to the Board of Directors of the Laser Institute of America
- 2002 TIP (UCF’s Teaching Incentive Program) Award
- 2001 ICALEO’01 Student Paper Award Competition: Yonggang Li
- 2000 ICALEO’00 Student Paper Award Competition: Jihua Du
- 2000 Fifth Annual Tibbetts Award
- 2000 American Welding Society award Henry Grajon Prize: Jian Xie
- 1999 First Prize Student Paper Award Competition: Jihua Du
- 1999 ICALEO’99 Student Paper Award Competition: Franz Josef Kahlen
- 1995 J. Mazumder and A. Kar, Theory and Application of Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition, Plenum Press, New York
Research Group
Laser-Advanced Manufacturing, Materials and Micro-Processing (LAMMMP) Laboratory, mathematical modeling of process mechanism, synthesis of new materials, advanced manufacturing and process diagnostics; laser-matter interactions, melting, vaporization, plasma effects, solidification and non-equilibrium synthesis of materials; diffusion, laser doping, semiconductor processing, sensors and detectors; laser CVD; laser machining, laser ablation, laser drilling, cutting and welding; process monitoring and diagnostic techniques.Research Scientists
Graduate Students
Gunjan Kulkarni
Electrical Engineering Ph.D.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
There are currently no people listed for this position.
Publications
Li, TY (Li, Tianyi) [1] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [2] ; Kumar, R (Kumar, Ranganathan) [1] "Competition Between Evaporation Rate and Surface Tension Affecting Particle Deposition in a Sessile Droplet" Journal of Fluids Engineering-Transactions of the ASME, Volume, 148, Issue: 1 2026
Garzón, C (Garzon, Christian) [1] ; Castillo-Orozco, E (Castillo-Orozco, Eduardo) [1] , [2] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [3] ; Kumar, R (Kumar, Ranganathan) [2] "Mixing Optimization for Enhanced Thermal Performance in the Dual-Inlet Liquid-Cooled Heat Sink" Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications, Volume: 17, Issue: 10, Year: 2025 2025
Enaganti, PK (Enaganti, Prasanth K.) [1] , [2] , [3] ; Chen, C- (Chen, Chien-Hsuan) [1] ; Zeile, M (Zeile, Margaret) [4] , [5] ; Das, UK (Das, Ujjwal K.) [4] ; Kumar, R (Kumar, Ranganathan) [6] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [2] ; Davis, KO (Davis, Kristopher O.) [1] , [2] , [7] , [8] "Photonic Curing of Copper Inks: A Pathway to Scalable Copper Metallization for Solar Cells" Physica Status Solidi A-Applications and Materials Science, Year 2025 2025
Bougdid, Y (Bougdid, Yahya) [1] ; Chenard, F (Chenard, Francois) [3] ; Sugrim, C (Sugrim, Chandraika (John)) [4] ; Kumar, R (Kumar, Ranganathan) [2] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [1] "CO2 laser-assisted deposition of multilayer homogeneous TiO2/SiO2 nanocomposite films with varying refraction and absorption indices" Journal of Laser Applications, Volume: 37, Issue: 2, Year: 2025 2025
Gunjan Kulkarni, Yahya Bougdid, Chandraika (John) Sugrim, Ranganathan Kumar, and Aravinda Kar "Laser Doping of n-type 4H-SiC with Boron using solution precursor for mid-wave iInfrared optical properties
" Journal of Laser Applications, Vol. 36, 2024, pp. 12016:1-11 2024
Chandraika (John) Sugrim, Gunjan Kulkarni, Yahya Bougdid, Ranganathan Kumar, Kevin Heylman, Aravinda Kar, and Kalapathy Sundaram "Numerical investigation of laser doping parameters for semi-insulating 4H-SiC substrate" Journal of Laser Applications, Vol. 36, 2024, pp. 22013:1-12 2024
Jannatul Ferdous Mousumi, Yahya Bougdid, Gunjan Kulkarni, Tianyi Li, Ranganathan Kumar, Aravinda Kar, Kristopher O. Davis "Laser sintered silver metallization for silicon heterojunction photovoltaic cells" Solar Rapid Research Letters (Sol. RRL), 2024, pp. 2400527: 1-8 2024
Yahya Bougdid, Gunjan Kulkarni, Francois Chenard, Chandraika John Sugrim,
Ranganathan Kumar, and Aravinda Kar "Optical properties of transparent TiO2 films by sintering anatase nanoparticles with a CO2 laser" Optical Materials, Vol. 156, 2024, pp. 115969:1-12 2024
Yahya Bougdid, Francois Chenard, Chandraika (John) Sugrim, Ranganathan Kumar, and Aravinda Kar "CO2 Laser sintering of TiO2 nanoparticles thin films for improved transmittance" Lasers in Manufacturing and Materials Processing, Vol. 11, 2024, pp. 284-305 2024
Kulkarni, G (Kulkarni, Gunjan) [1] , [2] ; Bougdid, Y (Bougdid, Yahya) [2] , [3] ; Sugrim, C (Sugrim, Chandraika (John)) [4] ; Kumar, R (Kumar, Ranganathan) [3] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [1] , [2] "Laser doping of n-type 4H-SiC with boron using solution precursor for mid-wave infrared optical properties" Journal of Laser Applications 36(1) 2024
Yahya Bougdid, Francois Chenard, Chandraika (John) Sugrim, Ranganathan Kumar, and Aravinda Kar "CO2 Laser Sintering of TiO2 Nanoparticles Thin Films for Improved Transmittance" Lasers in Manufacturing and Materials Processing, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40516-023-00241-6 2024
Steen, WM (Steen, William M.) [1] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [2] "Tribute edition to Professor Jyotirmoy (Jyoti) Mazumder laser additive manufacturing from cladding to complex parts" Journal of Laser Applications 35(3) 2023
Yahya Bougdid, Francois Chenard, John Sugrim, Ranganathan Kumar and Aravinda Kar
"CO2 Laser-Assisted Sintering of TiO2 Nanoparticles for Transparent Films" Y. Bougdid et al., Journal of Laser Applications 35, 012012 (2023) 2023
Rahaman, A (Rahaman, Arifur) [1] ; Kar, A (Kar, Aravinda) [1]
"Microstructures formed in polypropylene by a single pulse of near-infrared ultrafast laser with nonlinear absorption" Optics and Laser Technology, 158 2023
Tianyi Li, Kristopher O. Davis, Ranganathan Kumar, and Aravinda Kar, "Diffraction and thermal effect of Bessel-Gaussian laser for Ag nanoparticle deposition" Optics Express, Vol. 30, 2022, pp. 19246-19272. 2022
J.F. Mousumi, G. Gregory, J.P. Ganesan, C. Nunez, K. Provancha, S. Seren, T. Jurca, P. Banerjee, A. Kar, R. Kumar and K.O. Davis "Process-Structure-Properties Relationships of Passivating, Electron-Selective Contacts Formed by Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition of Phosphorus-Doped Polysilicon" Physica Status Solidi-Rapid Research Letters, A. 2100639 2022
A. Rahaman, X.P. Du, A. Kar and X.M. Yu "Experimental observation of the effect of pulse duration on optical properties in ultrafast laser micro-processing of polymers" Journal of Laser Applications, 33(4), A. 042003 2021
T.Y. Li, A. Kar and R. Kumar "Volumetric laser heating of nanosuspension microdroplets: Slow evaporation to mid-air explosion" International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 177, A. 121433 2021
Alumni
PhD
Arifur Rahaman, PhD, Summer 2020
Jeffrey M. Jennings, PhD, Fall 2018
Eduardo Castillo, PhD, Summer 2018
Victor Huge Velez, PhD, Summer 2017
Tian Si Wang, PhD, Spring 2017
Sen-Yong Chen, PhD, Spring 2012
Zhaoxu Tian, PhD, Spring 2006
Islam A. Salama, PhD, Spring 2003
Yonggang Li, PhD, Spring 2002
Jihua Du, PhD, Spring 2000
Wen Guo, PhD, Spring 2000
Franz-Joseph Kahlen, PhD, Spring 2000
Jian Xie, PhD, Spring 1998
Jinhua Xia, PhD, Spring 1997
Tianyi Li, PhD, Unknown
MS
Sambhav Anand, MS, Spring 2016
Tian Si Wang, MS, Spring 2012
Chong Zhang, MS, Spring 2008
Ugur Tanriver, MS, Spring 2000
Siva Kiran Chapalamadugu, MS, Spring 1999
Jun Cheng, MS, Spring 1999
Khizar Farooq, MS, Spring 1998
Srikanth Sankaranarayanan, MS, Spring 1998
Wisnu Pecharapa, MS, Spring 1997
Qiang Zhang, MS, Spring 1997
Patrik Strombeck, MS, Spring 1996
Thord E. Thorslund, MS, Spring 1996