Advanced Research Centre Condensed and Soft Condensed Matter

In 2014, the Platinum Jubilee Year of Lady Brabourne College, the Advanced Research Centre of Physics which is specially oriented around Condensed Matter and Soft Condensed Matter  received approval from the University of Calcutta. Under the umbrella of this Advanced Research Centre the Department has developed highly equipped Experimental Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory and Computational Statistical Physics Laboratory. In addition to these laboratories other research activities are also carried out in the Department.

Physics Department has had its beginning in the college in 1939 and has since grown up into a highly vibrant Department which handles both Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses. Since the very inception the teachers associated, have pursued their research work apart from teaching and administrative work with dedication and enthusiasm. Some of the torch bearers were Prof. Chameli Basu, Prof. Shovana Mukherjee, Prof. Nilima Misra. Their illustrious work  is now being carried forward by the present faculty members with great enthusiasm and motivation.

They have already guided PhD students and have successfully conducted Major Research and Minor Research Projects of different funding agencies like UGC,DST,CSIR.DAE-BRNS apart from the Institutional and self-financed projects.

Experimental Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory

 A huge experimental project amounting to Rs. 57,94,883 lakhs entitled “Study of the coupling between magnetic and dielectric properties in some magnetic ordering induced multiferroic materials” under Dr. Bidisa Chattopadhyay as the Principal Investigator has been set up in the Department. The project was sanctioned by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (File No. EMR/2016/006295 dated 11 July, 2017) . Abja Keshar Kar has joined as a Junior Research Fellow under this project.

In the Experimental Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory, we have started an extensive work to study the electric and magnetic properties of different solid state materials from room temperature down to 8K temperature.  Currently we are studying magnetically driven multiferroic materials with an aim to formulate a theory or model regarding the microscopic mechanisms leading to multiferroism in these systems. The laboratory has been developed with the help of the fund received under a Major Research Project sanctioned by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India in the year 2018 (File No. EMR/2016/006295). One Junior Research Fellow, Mr. Abja Keshar Kar is actively engaged in doing research work towards obtaining his Ph.D. degree in this project.

Projects Completed:

1. Minor research project on “Study of the inter-grain tunneling magnetoresistance in double perovskite polycrystalline, single crystalline as well as nanometer-scale sized materials” , UGC, Grant: 1 Lakh, 2005-2007, UGC Ref. No. F.PSW-030/04-05 (ERO).
2. Minor research project on “Study of correlation between magnetization and electric polarization in multiferroic compounds”, UGC, Grant: 1.95 Lakh, 2012-2014, UGC Ref. No. PSW-140/11-12 (ERO).

Computational Statistical Physics Laboratory

A computational statistical physics research laboratory is in place in the Department. The laboratory was set up using a CSIR funded major research project under the supervision of Dr. Sudeshna DasGupta (Principal Investigator) in collaboration with Prof. Soumen Kumar Roy (Co Principal Investigator), Department of Physics, Jadavpur University. The amount  sanctioned was Rs. 22 lakhs.(File No. 03(1235)/12/EMR II).

While the project has been completed successfully the computational physics laboratory is still active. Several students are engaged in research work in this laboratory.

Ms. Sabana Shabnam has completed her Ph.D and degree has been awarded from the University of Calcutta. She is currently engaged in Post Doctoral work at NISER, Bhubaneswar. Mr. Soumyajit Pramanick  is continuing his Ph.D  work  on various statistical mechanical models.

Other Research Activities

A“Memorandum of Understanding”(MOU) was signed between Lady Brabourne college, Biotech consortium Govt. of India, S.N.Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences and Tezpur University for the project entitled “Development Of Nanomaterial Based Dual Mode Contrast Agent And Their Surface Mediated Conjugation Study From The First Principle”. Prof. Abhijit Mookerjee, Professor Emiretus, S.N.Bose National Centre For Basic Sciences, Kolkata was the Principal Investigator (PI). Two associate members  from the  Department were Dr. Srabani Chakrabarty and Dr. Chhanda Basu Chaudhuri.

Dr. Ajanta Bhowal Acharyya is working on the concept of Self Organised Criticality, introduced by BTW in terms of a cellular automata model. This is expected to be the underlying cause of a large class of phenomena involving dissipative, nonlinear transport in open systems.  In BTW model, they have studied  the damage spreading ,  the onsets of avalanches and dissipations in the sub critical region and  the  statistical behaviour of the clusters of different automata .  BTW Model with probabilistically  nonumiform distribution of particles  coming from  the unstable   sites and  generalisation of  BTW Model with next nearest neighbour has also been studied.

Many natural phenomena  show synchronisation. It has been studied extensively to understand the occurrence of synchronisation with the help of modeled dynamical system, coupled map lattice(CML).  It has been obseved that synchronistion occurs in globally coupled chaotic maps.  And the occurrence of synchronisation depends on the strength of global coupling parameter. We have  observed  that synchronisation occurs at lower values of global coupling strength parameter in case of Lozi map, if one of the parameter of the Lozi map, α, is kicked  periodically from a value,α1 (correspondig to chaotic region of the map) to a value  α2 (corresponding to fixed point behaviour of the map) compared to the case having fixed value of α1.

A DST funded major project  on “Theoretical studies on Nonlinearity and Dynamical Instability of (driven) Bose-Einstein Condensate and Exploration of suitable control Mechanisms”  and a A DAE- BRNS major project entitled “Study of Bose Einstein condensation in finite optical trap”was successfully completed by Dr. Barnali Chakrabarti as Principal Investigator.

It is noteworthy to mention that Dr. Bidisa Chattopadhyay won the Woman Scientist Award in the International Conference on “Nanotechnology for Better Living”  organized by IIT, Kanpur and NIT, Srinagar during 25-29 May, 2016.

Glimpses of some recent research work