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T R Ravindran's Home

Professional Experience

1996 - present: Scientific Officer in the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam,

Principal Research Area: Study of phase transformations using Raman and related spectroscopic techniques on negative thermal expansion materials and other insulating and semiconducting materials as a function of pressure (in a diamond anvil cell) and temperature (10-900 K).

2000-2001: Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Chemistry Department at Penn State University, USA.  Work included (i) an attempt to synthesize bulk crystalline C_3­N₄(expected to be a super hard material) in a diamond anvil cell by laser heating tetracyanoethylene at a high pressure, (ii) Successful synthesis of diamond from C₆₀atroom temperature by compression in a diamond anvil cell, and (iii) UV Raman spectroscopic study of single walled carbon nanotubes.

1994-1996: Initially Post doctoral fellow and later Faculty at the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore.  Worked in the area of liquid crystals; synthesized carbon nanotubes with an aim to simulate liquid crystalline order.  Measured the magnetic susceptibility of liquid crystals to extract the order parameter.  Wrote Fortran programs to calculate the total magnetic susceptibility of molecules from their bond-susceptibilities.

1993-94: Postdoctoral fellow in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.  Work involved setting up facilities to measure resistivity and Hall voltage of NiFeCr alloys at liquid helium temperatures.

1986-1993: Doctoral work at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras on low temperature thermal conductivity of high temperature, ceramic superconductors.  Work involved, among other things, design, fabrication and automation of a liquid helium cryostat.  Also experienced in the measurement of electrical resistivity, thermoelectric power, specific heat, and sample preparation using high temperature solid-state reaction.

Thesis title: Thermal conductivity studies on zinc substituted YBa₂Cu₃O_7-y

2007-2008: Post-doctoral Research Associate in Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.  Studied the P-T phase diagram and melting properties of pure oxygen at pressures up to 120 GPa and temperature up to ~ 1000 K.