Department of Physics

The department of Physics is a place where faculty, graduate and undergraduate students thrive on collaborating together in a vibrant academic atmosphere. The department encourages top-class innovation in both its research activities as well as pedagogy, on topics ranging from fundamental nature to those with immediate technological applications.

The department currently has 55 faculty members, 200 graduate and 250 undergraduate students. The faculty and students have published on an average of 200 journal papers per year during the last five years. In addition, several undergraduate students in the department actively participate in research projects. The department attracts outstanding youngsters to join its faculty by providing an environment where academic ideas can blossom without barriers of groups and laboratories...

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The department of Physics is a place where faculty, graduate and undergraduate students thrive on collaborating together in a vibrant academic atmosphere. The department encourages top-class innovation in both its research activities as well as pedagogy, on topics ranging from fundamental nature to those with immediate technological applications.

The department currently has 55 faculty members, 200 graduate and 250 undergraduate students. The faculty and students have published on an average of 200 journal papers per year during the last five years. In addition, several undergraduate students in the department actively participate in research projects. The department attracts outstanding youngsters to join its faculty by providing an environment where academic ideas can blossom without barriers of groups and laboratories. Our researchers are engaged in a wide variety of areas spanning the whole spectrum of highly application oriented Materials research to purely theoretical foundations. The department faculty engage in research collaborations with leading institutions and industries in India and abroad and are also involved in many national and international interdisciplinary projects such as India-based Neutrino wave detection program, national solar energy program, gravitational wave detection program LIGO, collaborations with CERN to cite a few.

The department offers several academic programs with the goal of providing an education that prepares the students with scientific outlook and enables them to solve challenging problems not only in physics but also other areas of science and indeed society in general. Programs like the B.Tech. program in Engineering Physics, M.Tech. program in Functional Materials and Nanotechnology and the Interdisciplinary Dual Degree M.Tech. in Advanced materials and Nanotechnology aim to impart knowledge at the nexus of technology and Physics. Our 2-year MSc program, and BS-MS Dual Degree program aim to support students who are excited about science and are ready to take up challenging research. The instructional labs are continuously upgraded to the highest standards, having experiments at different grades of difficulties ranging from the basics to advanced research level. The course curricula are modernized periodically and a complete review of the programs are undertaken on the average once in 5 years.

Several members of our faculty are involved with outreach programs beyond the institute to engage the larger community with Physics. This includes regular interactions with teachers and students of high schools and undergraduate colleges in the region and a vibrant summer student internship program every year in addition to writing articles. The department faculty has had considerable experience and success in “distance- education” through NPTEL lectures. Many members of the faculty have given lecture based courses in NPTEL over the past few years with substantial favourable response from the viewers.

In a nutshell the department has state of the art research facilities for all research programs being undertaken to excel in contemporary research and training the students on topics which have a good balance between fundamental and applied component with immediate societal impacts.
Prof. K. Sethupathi
Head, Department of Physics

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