Purushottam Chakraborty is an Indian physicist who is one of the renowned experts in materials analysis using ion beams and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS).
He is a former senior professor of Physics at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India & former adjunct professor of Physics at University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Scientific career
Prof Chakraborty did his Ph.D. on the "Design and development of a radio-frequency (RF) quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) for the study of secondary-ions emitted from ion-bombarded metal surfaces". The QMS was initially fabricated by Profs S D Dey, S B Karmohapatro and B M Banerjee at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India.
Prof Chakraborty upgraded the equipment by appropriately lowering the frequency of the RF voltage so that the QMS could handle the masses above 200 amu and also by converting the system into a full-fledged UHV-based Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) Setup at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata. Making use of the indigenous SIMS instrument, he initiated the experimental research on Ion-Matter Interactions, for which he was awarded "Premchand Roychand Scholarship (PRS)" and conferred "Mouat Medal" by the University of Calcutta in 1986. Later, he pursued research on Atomic Collisions in Solids, Inelastic Ion-Surface Collisions and Ion-Beam Modifications & Analysis of Materials. His other research areas include Low-Dimensional Materials and Nanoscale Systems, X-UV Optics, Optoelectronics, Nonlinear Optics, Photonics, Plasmonics, etc.
Prof Chakraborty's work on the fabrication of ‘layered Synthetic Microstructures (LSM)’, at the FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics – Amsterdam (AMOLF), in collaboration with the Philips Research Laboratories Netherlands, was recognized as a pioneering contribution in the "realization of optical devices for the extreme ultraviolet to soft X-rays".
The methodology of fabricating aspherically-curved mirrors for reflecting soft x-rays at near-normal incidence was employed to construct ‘Soft X-ray Telescopes’ for imaging Solar Corona and Solar Flakes in the X-UV domain of electromagnetic spectrum. The European Space Agency, Netherlands also used this technique for reflecting X-rays with wavelengths of 1.85 and 10 to 17 Angstroms.
Prof. Chakraborty's "Alkali-element based MCsn+ Molecular-ion SIMS" approach has been used for the quantitative analysis of materials without calibration standards, in general and for the composition analysis of surfaces and interfaces of ultrathin films, superlattices and nanostructured materials, in particular. The technique has been recognized as an important contribution in the field of ion-beam analysis of materials.
Prof Chakraborty's work on ‘Ion-beam Synthesis of Metal-Glass Nanocomposites’ has led to the development of novel photonic materials, thereby opening the way for advances in all-optical switching, coupled waveguides and optical computation.
Professor Chakraborty visited and delivered invited lectures at various renowned universities and research institutes across the globe such as Imperial College London, UK; Vanderbilt University, USA; Yale University, USA; Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand; Kyoto University, Japan; and CERN (Geneva), Switzerland to name a few.
Prof Chakraborty was the visiting professor of Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan; Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada; Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany; University of Padova, Italy; International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy; FOM - Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, The Netherlands to name a few.
Awards and recognition
Adjudged the "Most Eminent Mass Spectrometrist of India' by the Indian Society for Mass Spectrometry (ISMS) for his outstanding contributions in SIMS Conferred "Gold Medal" in 2003 by the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, Government of India Premchand Roychand Scholar of the University of Calcutta (1979) Mouat Silver Medal – Awarded by the University of Calcutta (1986) Fellow, West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology Fellow, Indian Chemical Society