Dr. Indranath Chaudhuri (IC), M.Sc (CU), Ph.D (CU).
Head of the Department
St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), 30 Mother Teresa Sarani Kolkata 700016 West Bengal, India
Dr. Indranath Chaudhuri (IC), M.Sc (CU), Ph.D (CU).
Head of the Department
“Infinities and indivisibles transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness; Imagine what they are when combined.”
– Galileo Galilei.
The Postgraduate and Research Department of Physics has achieved the enviable distinction of being one of the oldest and largest departments at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata. Father Eugene Lafont, a brilliant scientist and educator who played a pioneering role in popularising science in and around Calcutta, set the groundwork for it in the middle of the nineteenth century. Other Jesuit fathers with notable academic accomplishments namely Fr. Verstraeten and Fr. Bonhome, have greatly benefited the department in many ways. This department has been offering a post-graduate physics course since 2006 in addition to the undergraduate courses (honours and pass). A PhD programme, under the supervision of its faculty members, was initiated in the department in 2016. Since July 2018, this department has been running the B.Sc. course under the CBCS curriculum introduced by the UGC. A new choice-based syllabus for the M.Sc. course has been introduced in the current year.
The department’s faculty members are highly skilled, knowledgeable, and devoted to providing quality education in the best manner possible. The majority of them have taken a leading role in cutting-edge physics and cross-disciplinary research. They have published research articles for numerous scholarly journals and have been invited to give lectures on their areas of expertise at a variety of academic institutions. Some of their work has also claimed patent rights.
The Science Academies’ Lecture Workshop, jointly organized by The National Academy of Sciences, The Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences are held in the department of physics on a regular basis. The Fr. Verstraeten Memorial lecture is also an annual lecture organised by the department with eminent scientists as invited speakers. The Physics department have also held a one of its kind refresher course in experimental physics jointly with the Indian Academy of Science with faculty members as resource persons. In association with FELO, several serial workshops like JESCOL and RAWA were held in previous years. In recent years, the department of Physics have also initiated the Dr.Ranjan Ray Commemoration Seminar and Fr. Eugene Lafont memorial Lecture.
The M.Sc. course includes the teaching of sophisticated computer programming and computer interfacing using the languages of Matlab and Python.
The special papers offered by the department for the M.Sc. course in Physics are:
(1) Astro-particle Physics
(2) Condensed Matter Physics
After lying dormant for more than a century, under the able guidance of the erstwhile Principal Fr. Mathew and enthusiasm of some faculty members of the Physics department, initiatives were taken to restart scientific activities in the observatory around 2007, with the old telescope and some make shift arrangements. This was in coincidence with the opening of the post-graduate course in Physics, with special emphasis on Astro-particle Physics, in collaboration with Bose Institute, Kolkata. The Department of Physics manages the Father Eugene Lafont Observatory, with the Principal being its director, Dr. Shibaji Banerjee , being its Assistant Director and Dr. Suparna Roy Chowdhury, currently. It is the oldest and the biggest observatory housed on an educational campus in India. A part of the research in astrophysics is carried out in Father Eugene Lafont Observatory (FELO) which is a twin observatory consisting of a stellar observatory with a motorized dome and a separate sliding roof observatory meant for solar observations.
Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory has many electronics based experimental units related to both analogue and digital communications, fibre optics and microcontrollers. Hall effect measurements and magneto-resistance setups are also included.
Academic activities of the department has been included in the report from ISRO on ‘Space Research in India’ for 44th COSPAR Scientific Assembly held between 16th – 22nd July, 2022, at Athens, Greece.
(Physics Hons. 2017-2020 batch)
Ayshi Mukherjee has obtained All India Rank 11 in Joint Admission Test (JAM) Physics paper. She also obtained All India Rank 12 in Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST) Physics paper.
In the month of January 2020, the NGPE exam organized by IAPT was held in our college and she was one of the Top 25 students and hence, she qualified for the next level of the examination which was an experimental round. She was declared as a NGPE Gold Medalist and eligible for a cash prize of Rs. 20,000/-.
C B S Socrates, Anindita Sarkar and Ayantika Saha are also among the NGPE – 2020 National toppers.
Ayshi Mukherjee joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai). Aryaa Dattamunsi and Rahul Saxena joined IIT(ISM) Dhanbad. Anindita Sarkar joined IIT Madras. Supritha Bhowmick joined IISER Pune. Ayantika Saha and Avishuman Ray joined IIT Kanpur. Aritra Paul joined IIT Bhubaneswar, Sounak Sengupta and Sharmistha Baidya joined IIT Guwahati, Tamoghna Roy joined ICTS, Bangalore, Debapriya Sil and Debangan Maji joined University of Calcutta, Biju Saha joined Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sounak Samanta joined IIEST, Shibpur, Ayaskanta Ghosh joined NIT, Warangal, Sarbajit Dutta joined JNCASR, Bangalore, Animesh Maji joined Benaras Hindu University, Writabrata Sengupta joined Presidency University, Kolkata (as JRF under Project Funded By Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences), Ilika Banerjee, Siddhartha Sen, Ankit Kumar Gupta, CBS Socrates, Apratim Ghosal and Hrishav Das are continuing there studies at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata.
Shaashwat Saraf joined dept. of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Selwyn College to pursue M.Phil in Micro and Nanotechnology Enterprise in the year 2021.
(Physics Hons. 2018-2021 batch)
3.M.S.Dinesh – AIR 79 in JAM 2021
Mousumi Mitra joined IIT Gandhinagar. Sulagna Dutta joined Tata institute of fundamental research, Mumbai for Integrated Phd in Condensed matter physics , Shramana Bera, Rivu Kayal, Anwesha Ganguly, Debalina Kar, Indranil Kuthe, Kobid Deb Roy, Manisha Dutta, Varsha Biswas, Arup Ghosh, Sayantani Banerje, and Wrik Banerjee joined St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, Debraj Dutta joined Satyendranath Bose National Center For Basic Sciences for Integrated PhD programme, Subham Das and Md Sariful Islam joined IIT KANPUR, Sagnik Ray joined IISER Thiruvananthapuram for Integrated PhD, Nilabja Ghosh joined M.Sc. in Big data analytics Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Mehraj Chhetri and M.S.Dinesh joined IIT Madras.
Invited Lectures
1.Dr. Tapati Dutta, delivered a lecture in the International conference ‘Droplets 2019’,16-18 September 2019: Durham, UK
Outreach Activities (Popular Lectures):
Patents:
No 305795″Audio game Set for the Visually Challenged” in collaboration with RKMVERI, Belur Math
Training received by the faculty: