1. DP/DU No. and  Name: 2.07 &  Materials Physics and Engineering Division
  (HEPP Building; Room No. 21)

7. Date of Joining NPL:September 13th,2011
8. No. of Publications:

9. No. of Patents: 1 (US Patent, File No. Poudeu 11N08, Submitted, 2011)

10. Current Activity 

Growing public awareness in environmentally friendly renewable energy sources, triggered by the prospects of climate change, and eventual fossil fuel depletion, has revived interest in thermoelectric materials and technology.

Our current interests are in developing the materials at nano scale through several nanostructuring approaches in order to achieve highly efficient thermoelectric materials.

We will be developing the promising low and high temperature semiconducting thermoelectric materials and devices to use them in variety of application fields ranging from small scale refrigeration (coolers, air conditioners) to power generation (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) in spacecraft).

Areas of research in our group extend from exploratory synthesis and characterization of new inorganic compounds to the development of new methodologies for targeted synthesis and optimization of the thermoelectric properties of both new and existing inorganic materials through nanostructuring.

Particular emphasis will be given on developing efficient thermoelectric materials through nanostructuring for the use of waste heat to electricity conversion applications.

Our research will be particularly focused on varieties of complex structured materials such as Skutterudites, half-Heusler, Mg3Sb2, Mg2Si and Bi2Te3- based nanocomposites in order to improve the thermoelectric performance of these materials.

11. Honours and Award:

a) CSIR-SRF (July 2002-Feb 2005; BHU
b) Senior Project Fellow Nov.2002-June 2002 (DST and BHU)
c) Junior Project Fellow Oct. 1998- Nov 2001 (MNES and BHU)

12. Any other information:

a) Memberships - Associations:

Member of Materials Research Society (MRS)

Reviewer in Intermetallics.

Reviewer of Applied Surface Science

Reviewer in Materials Research Society’s journals

Member of International Metallographic Society

Member of International Crystallography

b) Certifications:

Certificate in “Rigaku-MiniFlex II Diffractometer Training” at Advanced Materials Research Institute, University of New Orleans,New Orleans, LA, USA, June 28-29, 2010.

Certificate in “Responsible Conduct Research”Online Training, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA. May, 2010.

 c) Experimental Skills:

Microscopy : (SEM, Field emission SEM, TEM, High resolution TEM, EDS,

EELS, STEM Cryogenic Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) AFM and

cryofixation for TEM) and sample processing for using these characterization

Techniques trained at Advanced level.

Techniques Used for TEM Specimen Preparation: Electrojet polisher (Chemical

Thinning of specimens), Dimpler, Ion milling and Microtome.

Synthetic Materials Processesing of novel inorganic compounds including Inter

metallic’s and metallic alloys via :( 1) Arc Melting (2) suction casing (3) Radio

Frequency melting(R-F) (4) R-F: Melt spinning (5) Solid State Reaction

Powder Metallurgey: Hot press and SPS techniques; Powder X-Ray Diffraction

Mechanical Behavior: Nanoindentation, Microindentation (VHN) and   

Compression and tensile tests.

Thermoelectric Power: Electrical Resistivity and Thermoelectric Power

(ULVAC- RIKO ZEM-3)

Thermal Diffusivity (Laser Flash apparatus, Netzsch LFA-457)

Vacuum systems.

Thermal Characterization (Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Differential  

Thermal Analysis

d) Research Interest:

High Temperature Materials for Thermoelectric conversion(e.g. Skutterudites, SiGe, magnesium silicide, Half- Heusler/Full-Heusler nanocomposites and other novel materials) and low temperature thermoelectric (Bi2Te3based nanostructured  composites) materials.

Simulation of crystal structures, analysis of electron diffraction pattern, powder diffraction patterns etc.

Structure of Materials: Atomic structure and bonding characteristic Theories; structures of crystalline and amorphous materials; Bonding crystal classes, defects and atomic movement, Relationship between structure and properties of materials.

Metallic glasses, bulk metallic glasses, quasicrystalline phases, nanostructured dendrites composites, binary eutectic alloys and high entropy alloys

Nanoindentation study on bulk metallic glasses; Structure-property relationships of nanostructured high strength composite materials

Mechanical behavior of advance materials with current focus on bulk metallic glass composites and also eutectic alloys such as binary and ternary. Additional emphasis on testing small volume materials using indentation technique

Nano- crystallization of bulk metallic glasses to form nanoglass composites.