Harish Bhaskaran

Harish Bhaskaran FREng is a British-Indian engineer and academic whose work focuses on nanoscale systems, including photonic computing, memory devices, and smart materials. He is a Professor of Applied Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford and the founder of the university's Advanced Nanoscale Engineering Group.

Harish Bhaskaran
Nationality	British
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Known for	Nanoscale devices, photonic computing, smart materials
Awards	Optica Fellow (2025) Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) (2023) Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE) (2021)
Academic background
Education	BE in Civil Engineering, MS in Mechanical Engineering, PhD
Alma mater	College of Engineering Pune; University of Maryland, College Park
Academic work
Discipline	Electrical and Materials Engineering
Institutions	University of Oxford

Education

Bhaskaran completed a Bachelor of Engineering in civil engineering at the College of Engineering, Pune.^[1] He earned a Master of Science in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he studied the packaging of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).^[2]

Career

Bhaskaran began his research career at IBM Research – Zurich, where he worked on phase-change materials and atomic force microscopy (AFM) technologies. His work included the development of platinum silicide (PtSi) AFM probes and silicon-containing diamond-like carbon tips with ultralow wear properties.^[3][4]

He later conducted postdoctoral research at Yale University,^[1] before joining the faculty at the University of Exeter as a lecturer.^[5] In 2013, he moved to the University of Oxford, where he established the Advanced Nanoscale Engineering Group and was appointed Professor of Applied Nanomaterials in 2016.^[1]

Bhaskaran serves as director of the Oxford Fab,^[6] and, as of 2023, is the Associate Head for Research in Oxford's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division.^[7]

Research

Bhaskaran’s research spans nanomaterials, photonic computing, and neuromorphic devices. He has contributed to the development of adaptive smart window coatings that modulate infrared radiation, offering potential energy savings in buildings.^[8][9]

His group has also developed memory and display technologies using phase-change materials. He is a co-founder of Bodle Technologies, which is developing low-power reflective displays,^[10] and Salience Labs, which focuses on photonic computing.^[11]

Bhaskaran is one of the inventors of photonic non-volatile memory,^[12] and contributed to the development of integrated photonic tensor cores capable of parallel convolutional operations for machine learning applications.^[13]

Honours and recognition

• Optica Fellow (2025)^[14]
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2023)^[15]
• Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) (2021)^[16]
• EPSRC Manufacturing Fellow (2012)^[17]