I was the first Ph.D student of my supervisor. It was a great advantageous for me. It helps me to involve myself building the instrumental infrastructure in the laboratory. It was a great pleasure for me to stay in the laboratory for hours together with instruments. Further, I was directly involved in the procurement of different instruments (Close cycle cryostat, X-ray diffractometer, Thin film set-up etc.) and necessary components along with the samples for experiment. I feel immense pleasure to solve the different kind of problems arise during the experiments or standardizing any instrumental set up. At the beginning of my research carrier, we built a homemade cryostat to measure temperature dependent resistivity down to liquid nitrogen temperature using four probe method. However, it was a challenge for me to take continuous data. I solved the problem using LabView programming. I built the LabView program for automatic data acquisition. Later, I have used close cycle cryostat to measure resistivity down to 6K. I worked on thermoelectric material during my Ph.D. Hence, it was very important to measure the Thermopower. I have designed and standardize the instrument. However, it was difficult to build a program for automatic data acquisition by controlling few meters and current sources. By continuous effort we have standardize the set-up for automatic data acquisition. I was also involved in measurement of various structural and transport properties of the material. Detail of my research experiences is given bellow:
My topics of research were
Transport and Some Other Properties of Bismuth and Antimony Alloy Based Thermoelectric Material.
&
Structural, Transport and Some Other Properties of Antimony and Tellurium Based (Sb2Te3, Sb2Te3-ySey) Thermoelectric Material.
· Systems Studied
a. Bi1-xSbx (0.08 < x < 0.20
b. Bi0.88Sb0.12 (Quenched from three different temperatures during Synthesis)
c. (Bi1-xSbx)2Te3 (0.60 < x < 0.80)
d.Sb2Te3 (Metallic and Semiconducting)
e. Sb2Te3-ySey (0.0 < y < 1)
· Measurement and analysis during Ph.D
a. X-Ray Diffraction with Cu kα at room temperature
b. X-Ray Diffraction using Synchrotron radiation source in different temperature at KEK, Japan and RRCAT, Indore.
c. Temperature variation of Resistivity in presence and absence of magnetic field.
d. Thermal variation of Thermoelectric power
e. Thermal variation of Hall Coefficient in different magnetic field.
f. Temperature dependent Raman Scattering.
g. TEM, SEM, EDX for analysis of morphology and x-ray mapping.
h. Micro-Hardness to determine the grain size using Hall-Petch relation.
i. Temperature dependent Magnetic Susceptibility.
j. Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA)
· Instrumental setup made
a. Thermopower setup (Seebeck Coefficient) with automatic data collection using LabVIEW software.
b. Temperature dependent Resistivity setup with automatic data collection using LabVIEW software.
Further, I had taken advance material science practical classes of M.Sc student under the scheme “Earn while you learn”. I was demonstrator of Thin film deposition unit by resistive heating method using electron beam gun. First I had to give the demonstration of the instrument made by HINDHIVAC. I helped the student in analysis of x-ray diffraction data of the deposited thin film. I was also involved in demonstration of temperature dependent hysteresis loop Ferro electric material.
I joined at Vidyasagar Evening College as an Assistant Professor on 2nd March, 2015. I am deeply involved with the under graduate laboratory. There are three undergraduate Laboratory in our college and the college follows the syllabus of ‘University of Calcutta’. We procure necessary component for the experiment directly from the market. Further, we repair the instruments ourselves. Few notable experiments are related with B-H loop, Fresnel Biprism, OPAMP etc.
During Ph.D tenure, I used some software to analysis of the data. Further, few softwares were used to convert data in the well known format to analyze. I used the following software for the research purpose.
· Software Skills
§ OriginLaB (For Graph Plotting and data Analysis)
§ LabVIEW(Automatic data Acquisition and instrument control software used to Program the temperature dependent Resistivity and Thermopower data collection)
§ Matlab (Used to data analysis and calculation).
§ FIT2D (1 and 2 dimensional data analysis program, used on most of the European Synchrotron Research Facility beam-lines)
I am always enthusiastic and interested to build up new experimental set-up. The challenge to standardize the home made instruments always draw my attention. However, I also eager to use cutting edge instruments in my research. I want to learn new techniques and involve in new field. I am interested to use different synthesis technique to prepare the sample, characterize their transport properties and make a close collaboration worldwide and national scientist.