MICROWAVE LABORATORY, IIT MADRAS
IIT-Madras, Chennai-36
Department of Physics - Microwave Lab
  Activities   Facilities   Publications   Projects   Thesis   Conference   Members Former Members   Home



Prof.J.Sobhanadri joined Department of Physics in 1962 at the age of 27 after completing M.Sc., D.Sc., from Andhra University (1960) and working as Lecturer at University Engineering college, for the first batch of B.Tech students.  He was also a Post Doc Fellow of UGC there.

After joining IIT Madras, he was given the responsibility of starting and developing the Electronics Labortatory and teaching Electronics to the first batch of M.Sc Physics students. Dr.N.Hariharan of the first batch M.Sc joined him for his Ph.D and thus started his research career. In the next couple of years, he initiated the idea of Research Projects and got sanctioned 2 projects, one from CSIR and another from Defence. There was no ICSR at that time and the Director asked the Deputy Director, Prof.Sampath to be the Administrative support for the projects. The Defence project was for developing the Microwave Laboratory and thus the Laboratory has taken an independent shape along with the Equipment given by Germany. The CSIR project helped him to initiate research  in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance and Dr.C.V.Ram Mohan got his Ph.D for the work. IIT Madras happened  to be the next place after Andhra University where NQR work was first initiated in India by Prof.K.Rangadhama Rao.

Dr.R.K.Khanna followed by Dr.V.R.K.Murthy initiated the work in the Microwave Laboratory on Dielectric Dispersion of liquids and Ferrite Materials. The Humboldt Foundation approved the Humboldt Fellowship to work in Germany with Prof.A.Weiss on NQR. This association had given an opportunity for subsequent visits to work in Magnetic Resonance at Darmstadt and dielectric studies of Polymer Materials at Marburg. Prof. JS is the first person to get Humboldt Fellowship in the Science Departments of IIT Madras. He was the President of the CHENNAI Chapter of the Humboldt Club during 1995 and 1996.

Prof. Sobhanadri mainly initiated Sponsored Research Projects from different agencies like DST, DOE, Defence and CSIR for advancing the activities of the Microwave Laboratory. He also got support from Indo-German and Indo-US research projects. And the Microwave Laboratory has developed into a very active research component of the Department. The credit goes to the 30 Research Associates of  the  Laboratory and it is also a credit to the Laboratory that all the persons associated with the Laboratory got very important professional careers after their background from the Laboratory.

An important contribution of Prof. JS is the development of the MBE system in CSD of the Department of Electrical Engineering, where Prof. D.Kakathi got the project from DST. Before leaving IIT, Dr.Kakathi requested Prof. JS to take the responsibility of the MBE project as also the research students working with him at that time. This has taken place with the approval of the Director Prof.P.V. Indiresan. IIT Madras has become the first place in India to grow Epitaxial Thin films of Lead Tin Telluride using Molecular Beam Epitaxial System. The DST also was very happy and approved a second project to continue the MBE work. It was at this time that CSD and Electrical Department got the feeling that Physics need not get so much credit and inspite of DST insisting that Prof. JS should be associated with the project, the EE department wanted it for them. Dr.Sobhanadri left it there and the money DST gave to IIT was spent without any further progress in the work by CSD.

After completing the term as Head of the Department between 1980 - 84, Dr.Sobhanadri went to USA on sabbatical leave as visiting Professor (Professional Specialist) and worked in the Radiation Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. It was during this time that the idea of Time Domain measurements of excited states of liquids and semiconductors started using different Laser pulses. After returning back to IIT, these two ideas were implemented in the Microwave Laboratory with the support of a project from DST that enabled the purchase of an Excimer Laser. A 2mm Microwave set up has also been added (140 GHz). The laboratory has thus grown from frequency domain to time domain and established itself in the contemporary areas of research in liquids, solids and polymers. Dr.V. Subramanian has been of good support prior to the retirement from the department.

It is a matter of pride and great satisfaction that the Microwave Laboratory is going to greater heights with Prof.VRK Murthy, Prof.T.S.Natarajan and Prof.V.Subramanian taking the level of work to greater heights with latest developments in Material Research. Dr.Ponnuraj and Dr.A.T.Seshadri are also continuing in IIT. Prof.V.Santhanam working in the University of Madras is also having joint interaction with the Microwave Laboratory.

The details of the persons associated with the laboratory along with their publications and thesis details is also attached in the website.

I.I.T, Madras| Home Page of Dr.V.Subramanian | Go to Top of the Page  

Copyright 2002 Microwave Lab - Department of Physics.
Indian Institute of Technology,Madras. Chennai - 600 036
setstats 1
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1