E-Paper
A major achievement for AU
ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY (AU) is all set to become the first varsity of the country to have its very own High Fluence Low Energy Ion Beam Facility (HFIBF). The facility will allow AU to undertake cutting-edge researches in the field of material science like diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) and spintronics.
ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY (AU) is all set to become the first varsity of the country to have its very own High Fluence Low Energy Ion Beam Facility (HFIBF). The facility will allow AU to undertake cutting-edge researches in the field of material science like diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) and spintronics.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has approved setting up of the facility under its Intensification of Research in High-Priority Areas (IRHPA) scheme at AU which would now form a key node of the ambitious National Accelerator Grid.
To be set-up in collaboration with the Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC)— formerly the Nuclear Science Centre (NSC), an autonomous inter university research facility of the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, the HFIBF at AU, once functional, will become part of the national accelerator grid which presently comprises of the accelerators at the IUAC, the IIT-Kanpur and the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneshwar and will function as a national user facility.
“The project was submitted almost two years back. This followed expert opinion being sought from 15 eminent scientists and a presentation by me. The DST approval and funding of Rs 4. 5 crore came in 2005 but with a few riders. They wanted that we should extend the time period of the project from three years to five years, let it be used as a national user facility and that AU should take it over after the stipulated five years,” informed Dr Avinash Chandra Pandey of AU physics department who has bagged the funding for the project.
“AU Vice-Chancellor Prof RG Harshe has now agreed to the conditions in principle and will put them before the Executive Council. Once the green signal is received, work on installation will begin on ground,” he added.
It may be recalled that the Board of Studies has already approved the start of an MSc programme in physics with focus on ion beam and x-rays and the facility will also pave way for AU to begin the programme.
Once ready, the facility will enable experiments related to the cutting edge of material science to be carried out in AU. “Work, specially in the promising field of DMS, will become possible. DMS are semi-conductors doped with magnetic impurities and combine magnetic with semiconducting properties. For this reason, they appear to represent a new type of material for spintronics,” Dr Pandey said.
Explaining spintronics or spin electronics, he said that it referred to the study of the role played by electron (and more generally nuclear) spin in solid state physics and possible devices that specifically exploited spin properties instead of or in addition to charge degrees of freedom.
“For example, spin relaxation and spin transport in metals and semiconductors are of fundamental research interest not only for being basic solid state physics issues but also for the already demonstrated potential these phenomena have in electronic technology,” he added.
The HFIBF is being considered a major achievement for AU as it could one day even help an accelerator to be set up in the varsity and open yet more avenues for research.
