Department Profile

Established 50 years ago, the Department was set up for postgraduate teaching and research under the dynamic personality of an icon of simplicity and lofty thoughts, Prof. A. R. Patel. With only 2 faculty members and 10 students to being with, M.Sc. Teaching got a momentous start. Research began with the study of micro-topography and dislocation configuration and movement in crystals by use of multiple-beam interferometry and the selective chemical etch-pit method. Diamond, mica, calcite, fluorite, quartz, barite, galena and alkali halides were the main crystals investigated. To help students learn better in the specialized field of Solid State Physics, ‘Edward’ vacuum coating unit, Vickers’ Metallurgical Microscope and ‘Philips’ X-ray machine were installed. The Department was bubbling with energy, with more than 10 research scholars and only 2 research guides working at that time. The students used to queen up, round the clock, waiting for their turn to work on the Vickers’ optical microscope. We encountered a problem of resolving screw dislocation components in materials like silicon carbide, and thus came to our rescue the ‘Carl Zeiss’ Electron Microscope – one of the few in the country in the 1960s. Of course, later, having got installed the versatile 125 KV ‘Philips’ electron microscope with scanning, transmission and EDAX facilities, we gave away, free of cost, the older 65 KV ‘Carl Zeiss’ electron microscope to Gujarat University. Then, “why purchase or borrow a crystal from abroad for our studies here” was a pertinent question for development in the right direction, leading to the fabrication of crystal growth techniques and processes in the early seventies. With all-out support from the Department Workshop, growth from solution, melt, flux, vapour, gel and Kyropoulos & Czochralski methods came into existence. That was also the period when the Indian Physics Association (IPA) was being constituted.

The Department got the first research project on ‘crystal growth’ sanctioned by the UGC in 1975. In research labs, bulk single crystals were so far being studied. With a view to making electronic devices using the Solid State Materials grown in the Department, work on crystallization of thin films under high vacuum got a boost. M. Sc. Teaching was elevated too, by opening a new field of specialization, Solid State Electronics. I may emphasize at this point that ‘student care’ has remained our motto. If a student was not able to fare well in his/her exams, Prof.A.R.Patel would blame the teacher for the pitfall. But he had given full freedom to teachers, may be for devising an experiment, implementing new ideas, or for revising the syllabus.

The image of the Department got Spread across the country,and we organized two international conferences in 1978-1980. During all these years since inception, the Department represented a true cross section of the country ,since it had attracted students from almost all the states .Interestingly ,we have had the fortune of interacting with distinguished,top-position visiting science from BARC, TIFR, NPL, NCL, PRL, IITs, BHU, and so on.” When we are now growing crystals here, why not to study their characteristic electrical and mechanical properties” was a thoughtful question. Thus came into existence vander Pauw, Seeback and Hall studies along to support the on-going experiments in research labs, with relevant theory. Thus came Solid State Theory-Theoretical Physics as an additional field of research and teaching .Around the same time .thereby completing the story of ‘Crystal growth’ and characterization of bulk crystals and thin films,supported and backed by theory ,was a full fledged well known centre of research in condensed matter physics during nineteen eighties and ninetees. The Department was identified by the UGC for ‘special assistance’ in 1994:we are working presently in its third phase .Variety of materials of industrial and basic scientific importance,e.g.,TMDC.MWO4/MoO4,BBO,II-VI compounds ,metals & alloys have been investigated .In the present decade or so ,good many areas have added color to the Department :pseudo potentials, Schottky devices, low dimensional Conductors, proteins and other biomoleculers, high pressure measurements atomic and molecular Scattering, hadrons, non-conventional energy (Solar, wind) Systems, etc.

Over the years, We have also been sanctioned research projects from UGC,CSIR,DST,DNES,DAE,DRDO and ISRO. Just a few years ago, the department organized another national conference (TC-2008) to its Credit. And, with the latest ’Brucker’ Single Crystal diffractometer and the powder diffractometer in operation on the research facilities have reached to a new height. The work on nanomaterials has already commenced, the Department has a bright future.