Brief Biography

Prof. Preeti A. Bhobe

Discipline of Physics

Indian Institute of Technology Indore

Academic Qualification

PhD, Goa University, Goa (India)

Thesis: “Study of Magnetic and Martensitic Transitions in Ni-Mn-Ga type Heusler alloys".

Academic Experience

• JSPS Foreign Postdoctoral Fellow at Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP), University of Tokyo

• Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. A. K. Nigam, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (T.I.F.R.), Mumbai.

Awards:

• Indo-U.S. WISTEMM Overseas Fellowship for Visiting Researcher at Texas A&M University, Texas, USA

• Best Ph.D. Thesis Award at 52nd DAE-Solid State Physics Symposium 2007.

Specialization:

Experimental Condensed Matter Physics; X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS), thermoelectric power measurements, Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES), and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), Magneto-functional materials.

Abstract:

Materials that are capable of converting a temperature gradient across them into a measurable voltage, are known as thermoelectric materials. As one of the alternatives to combat the energy crisis that may arise in future, thermoelectric materials have attracted much attention of scientists worldwide. Besides, with its several advantages like clean power generation, no moving parts, long shelf life, control over toxicity, noiseless operation etc, these materials are growing favourites in the journey towards green and sustainable earth.

The applicability of any material as a good thermoelectrics and quantification of its efficiency for any practical application, is given by a dimensionless quantity called “figure of merit”, ZT. Several physical properties like electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity etc contribute to the ZT. The challenging part in the development of a thermoelectric material is to resolve interdependency of such physical factors. In this talk, I shall first discuss the various aspects related to the field of thermoelectrics, recent trends in research on these materials, and then discuss the results we obtained in our laboratory on the material in vogue, Tin Selenide.