Department of Physics

Affiliation: Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

The Department of Physics at SRM University-AP is organising the second edition of the Eminent Guest Lecture Series: An Odyssey of Physics on July 24, 2021, Saturday at 3.00 pm. The session will be engaged by Prof S Patnaik from the School of Physical Sciences in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi on the subject “New Materials for Energy and Information Storage and Transmission”. Prof. V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor; Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor; Prof. C Durga Rao, Associate Dean, SLASS; Prof. Ranjit Thapa; Prof. Amit Chakraborty; and Prof. Pranab Mandal from the Department of Physics at SRM University-AP will be the panellists for the session.

Abstract:
The discovery of Dirac and Weyl semimetals (WSM) has brought forth the condensed-matter realization of Dirac/Weyl fermions, which were previously theorised as low energy excitations in high energy particle physics. In the recent past, we have witnessed some exceptional developments in chalcogenide and pnictide materials that have been identified with such properties. Several age-old industrial materials based on selenides, tellurides, borides and oxides have come to the fore that promise to usher in a new understanding of correlated electronic systems. Towards material implementation of quantum computation, we shall review the electromagnetic properties of topological superconductor SrxBi2Se3 and study its pairing mechanism. Several transition metal mono-pnictides are under intense investigation for understanding the properties of inversion-symmetry broken Weyl semimetals. Non-trivial Berry phase and chirality are important markers for characterizing topological aspects of Weyl semimetals. We shall discuss aspects of exceptional magneto-resistance seen in the normal state of these topological semimetals. In specific, we shall summarize potential applications with regard to material properties of the following systems a) Single-stage cryocooled superconducting magnets for MRI (MgB2), b) Cables for lossless energy transmission and storage (Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10), c) Materials to implement Quantum Computation (Sr intercalated Bi2Se3), d) Better read-heads for magnetic storage devices (NbP, TaSb2), e) Magnetic Nano-particles for Cancer therapy (Co+CoO EB), f) Thermoelectric materials for waste heat scavenging (ZrNiPb), g) Next-generation piezo devices using multiferroic materials. (Y2CoMnO6) and h) new ideas on solar energy and battery applications.

About the Speaker:
Dr S Patnaik is a distinguished professor at the School of Physical Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He has more than 16 years of experience in the field of research and academics. Dr Patnaik has over 5000 citations for published works. He has international collaborations with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, Université Paris Sud, Orsay, France, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Dr Patnaik’s areas of interest or specialisation are Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Superconductivity, Mutiferroics and Thermoelectric materials.

Join this educative lecture session on July 24, 2021, at 3.00 pm.

Affiliation: University of Hyderabad

Affiliation: TIFR, Mumbai

Affiliation: IIT Madras

The Department of Physics is going to host the sixth instalment of the Eminent Guest Lecture Series: An Odyssey of Physics on March 19, 2022, at 03.00 PM IST with Prof Parongama Sen from the University of Calcutta as the keynote speaker. Dr Sen will be speaking on” Non-equilibrium dynamics of interacting particle systems with annihilation”.

Prof Parongama Sen has been teaching at the University of Calcutta as Professor since 2008. She received her PhD from Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta in 1993. She was also awarded APS-IUSSTF Professorship in 2012-13. Her research interests include statistical physics: phase transitions and critical phenomena in magnetic systems, networks, quantum systems, percolation etc. and dynamical phenomena in complex physical and social systems.

Non-equilibrium dynamics of interacting particle systems with annihilation

There has been tremendous research activity on the evolution of systems comprising of interacting particles in Statistical Physics over the last few decades. This lecture particularly considers those systems in which the particles (also called reactants) may get annihilated instantaneously upon contact or merged as a single species, both of which reduce the particle number. Some of these processes have a one-to-one correspondence with the coarsening dynamics of spin systems and play an important role in the development of non-equilibrium Statistical Physics.

Usually, one considers diffusive motion when the particles move freely, and some known results in this context will be discussed. Here, the speaker notes that the dynamics may also be considered in terms of population densities rather than individuals and examples include models of epidemic spreading.

Finally, she will focus on a model in which the reactant particles are driven by a dynamic bias that radically changes the scaling behaviour of the relevant quantities. The results will be presented for such a system, highlighting the microscopic dynamics, which reveal a crossover behaviour.

Register here for an informative session with Prof Parongama Sen.