Department of Physics, Dibrugarh University organized Prof. H.L. Das and Prof. S.B. Singh memorial lectures on the occasion of Teacher’s day, 2020. This lecture series was held in the memory of two of the department’s beloved former faculty members: experimental condensed matter physicist, Late Prof. H.L. Das and theoretical physicist Late Prof. S.B. Singh. Two noted researchers in their own fields, both Prof. Das and Prof. Singh are considered in the league of most influential teachers inspiring generations of students with their extraordinary teaching and down to earth personalities. Prof. Das memorial lecture has been organized by the department since 2017. This is the first time the department has organized Prof. Singh memorial lecture. This time around because of the prevailing COVID-19 situation, the department decided to organize the event on google meet with live streaming on youtube. The department was fortunate enough to have two of the leading scientific figures of the country: Prof. Sobhana Narasimhan of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR, Banagaluru)and Professor Mandar M. Deshmukh from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, Mumbai) as the two speakers for the event. While Professor Narasimhan works in the field of Computational Material Science, Prof. Desmukh is an experimental condensed matter physicist.
Hosted by Dr Bulumoni Kalita, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, the event commenced at 9.45 AM with an inaugural speech by Prof. Dipak Chetia, Dean, Research and Development, Dibrugarh University. Prof. Chetia fondly recollected his personal association with Late Prof. S.B. Singh and paid tributes to Late Prof. H. L. Das. He also emphasized on the ever increasing role of digital movement in improving the accessibility and quality of higher education and research. Prof. Chetia’s speech was followed by a welcome address by Dr Pankaj Dutta, Head, Department of Physics. In his brief speech, he briefly introduced the organizing department and highlighted the lives and works of Prof.H.L. Das and Prof. S.B. Singh. Then Dr Bulumoni Kalita introduced the first speaker, Prof. Sobhana Narasimhan with a summary of her academic and research profile and invited her for delivering the first talk titled ‘Computing the Properties of Materials from First Principle’. Beginning with a historical perspective of material science research, Prof. Narasimhan highlighted the importance of rational material design in the context of current status of the field. She presented a very elementary introduction to density functional theory and went on to point out some of the important research works currently taking place in this regard. Prof. Narasimhan’s talk was very lucid and at the same time, illuminating . Her talk was followed by a brief interactive session. Students, faculty members, researchers from the university, other colleges and universities actively participated in the interactive session which was a fair reflection of how influencing Prof. Narasimhan’s talk was. This was followed by the introduction of the second speaker, Prof. Mandar M. Desmukh by Dr Bulumoni Kalita. Prof Desmukh’s talk was titled ‘Electronic properties of 2D crystals’. Commencing with the idea of two dimensional materials in the context of electronic properties, he moved on to the specific example of graphene and elaborated on its interesting properties and aspects. Prof. Deshmukh talked about a number of recent developments in the direction of synthesis and characterization of graphene. Towards the end of his talk, he also drew the attention of the audience to the idea of two dimensional superconducting materials. Prof. Deshmukh’s talk was also followed by an interactive session where a number of curious researchers tried to fine tune their understanding. The lecture series eventually concluded with vote of thanks offered by Dr Pankaj Dutta, Head, Department of Physics, Dibrugarh University.