Physics

School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Professor

•  Solid State Research Laboratory ( SSRL) , Department of Physics.

We are living in silicon age and silicon forms the core of the microelectronics that enables much of our modern way of life. Due to the fundamental physical limitations set by the size of the silicon atoms that make up the materials, the silicon technology will soon be forced to come to an end. This is because of the fact that magnetic materials are sisters to silicon in many technologies. Silicon processes the information and the magnetic materials store that information. But magnetic technologies come at a cost: to produce the magnetic fields one needs a bulky component that uses lot of energy.  So step must be taken beyond the silicon age and new materials must be developed otherwise we will be stuck in an energy bottle neck for human progress. In this situation the material that is both magnetic and ferroelectric would maintain all the advantages of magnetic materials, but in addition, can be controlled using electric fields. As the electric fields are efficient, they can be made of tiny components, and compared with magnetic fields, use vanishingly small amounts of energy.  The multiferroic materials are the suitable choice for advancement of technology beyond the silicon age. The multiferroic materials display at the same time both ferroelectric and magnetic properties, and have drawn significant attention in recent years due to their multifunctional applications. So the rapid advancement as well the enormous applications in the field of materials science has felt the need of a specialized laboratory to impart education and research at various levels.Our research group has been working on both single phase and multiphase multiferroics. We are also interested in growing bi-layer thin films with enhanced magnetoelectric properties mostly influenced by structural strains. Preparation of single phase multi-ferroics are  considered to be a challenging task. Moreover, the co-existence of ferromagnetism/ferrimagnetism and ferroelectricity in single phase materials is quite rare and very difficult thus driving the development of composite multiferroic materials. By preparing a new class of ferrite-ferroelectric composites with improved properties we can contribute to the existing knowledge of these category of materials. The laboratory prepared ferrite-ferroelectric composites will serve as a multifunctional materials: Besides being composite materials, they can serve as ferrites and ferroelectric materials on individual level (both of which have important applications). The Solid State Research Laboratory will go a long way in providing experimental facilities to the scholars who are interested in working in the field of experimental solid state physics.