School of Physics, University of Hyderabad

The School of Physics is proud to announce that PhD scholar Ms. Bidisha Bag has received the prestigious Best Poster Award at the 10th International Soft Matter Conference (ISMC 2026). The conference was held at BITS Pilani, K.K. Birla Goa Campus, from May 25–29, 2026.
This global accolade recognizes her outstanding scientific contribution and excellence in research presentation within the field of soft condensed matter physics.
Working under the expert supervision of Prof. Surajit Dhara, Ms. Bag’s research explores the fascinating physics of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals—a newly discovered state of matter that uniquely combines liquid crystallinity with spontaneous electrical polarization.
Key Highlights & Impact
• The Study: Titled “Elastocapillary Thinning Dynamics in Ferroelectric Nematic Filaments,” her award-winning work was recently published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), USA [122(25), e2518010122 (2025)].
• The Breakthrough: The study reveals that long-range polar order in ferroelectric nematics can generate remarkable polymer-like elasticity.
• Future Applications: This uncovers a completely new mechanism for elastic behavior in fluids, opening exciting avenues for adaptive soft materials and fluidic technologies.
“This achievement highlights the growing international recognition of cutting-edge research being conducted at the University of Hyderabad and reflects our ongoing commitment to excellence in scientific innovation.”
Hearty congratulations to Ms. Bidisha Bag on this remarkable milestone! of Hyderabad

The Terahertz Research Group at the University of Hyderabad has developed an advanced terahertz (THz) profilometer for the non-contact measurement of surface roughness for potential applications in defense and industry
Researchers from the DRDO Industry Academia Centre of Excellence (DIA-CoE), School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, led by Sr. Prof. A. K. Chaudhary, along with team members Dr. Chandan Ghorui and Mr. Periketi Naveen Kumar, have developed an indigenous terahertz (THz) profilometer for the non-contact and non-destructive measurement of surface roughness in metallic and explosive materials. The developed system has potential applications in the field of defence such as evaluating paint quality in naval vessels, assessing the surface smoothness of warheads and missiles, and inspecting stealth/composite-coated surfaces.
The THz profilometer successfully measured surface roughness in explosives and metallic samples within the ranges of 0.05–0.15 μm and 15–100 μm, respectively. A major advantage of the developed technology is its capability to pe*****te painted coatings and detect hidden corrosion beneath metallic surfaces, which is difficult to achieve using conventional visible-light-based techniques.


Figure 1: (a) 2D-THz images of painted old metallic object at f= 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 & 2 THz range, respectively. (b) 3D surface roughness images of same object .
The designed THz profilometer operates in a tilted-reflection geometry and is an extension of the previously developed real-time 2D THz imaging system. The system provides real-time 2D and 3D profile imaging of painted and unpainted metallic objects, as well as hazardous materials.
The part of the developed work is published in Journal of Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves, 47 :36, 1-14, 2026, DOI: 10.1007/s10762-026-01142-3 .
The second part of the same technique with DFT calculation done by Dr. Prathap Kr. Jharapala , used to measure the such as ammonium nitrate and urea is published in the Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 359:127911, 2026, DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2026.127911.
The innovation has also received Indian patent recognition and published on 28 November 2025 in Patent Journal No. 48/2025 with Patent Application No. 202441040603 and Patent No. 11536.
Dr. Chandan Ghorui expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF), Government of India, for financial support. Prof. A. K. Chaudhary, Dr. Chandan Ghorui, and P. Naveen Kumar also thanked Dr. S. C. Bhattacharya, Director of DIA-CoE, UoH. of Hyderabad

Dr. Sankaran Ramesh, Alumni (IMSC Physics) batch joined as Assistant Professor in the Advanced Technology Development Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
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Sankaran Ramesh completed his Integrated M.Sc. in Physics at the University of Hyderabad in 2018, graduating with the University Gold Medal.

He moved to Singapore for his doctorate at Nanyang Technological University, entering the then-rapidly expanding field of metal halide perovskites at a moment when their photophysics were still poorly understood. His PhD work focused on the ultrafast dynamics of charges in hybrid perovskite materials, a class of materials now rivalling silicon solar cells in efficiency. He simultaneously built experimental capability, developing advanced time-resolved spectroscopy platforms that could observe ultrafast snapshots of quantum processes in materials.

In 2023, he moved to Lund University in Sweden as a postdoctoral researcher in Tönu Pullerits's group, where his research pivoted decisively toward the intersection of ultrafast spectroscopy, chirality, and the role of lattice vibrations in governing spin and charge dynamics.

In January 2026, Sankaran returned to India as a Ramanujan Faculty Fellow at IIT Madras - one of the most competitive early-career research fellowships in Indian science, awarded by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation. An offer from IIT Kharagpur led him to take up an Assistant Professorship at the Advanced Technology Development Centre in April 2026, where he is starting a research group that investigates light-matter interactions in hybrid perovskites, low-dimensional materials and chiral nanostructures. of Hyderabad

Prof. Vinod Menon, Alumnus named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Recognition highlights pioneering contributions to light–matter interactions and quantum photonics
Vinod Menon (Vinod), Alumnus of University of Hyderabad and Professor of Physics at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and a UoH alumni has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest and most prestigious scientific societies. The honor recognizes distinguished contributions to the field of strong light-matter interaction and its control in atomically thin materials.
Vinod received his master’s degree in physics (1993-95) with specialization in quantum optics at the University of Hyderabad and then PhD in physics from the University of Massachusetts. Following this he was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University. Since 2005 he has been at CUNY.

His research group has made important contributions in the field of light–matter interactions, particularly in low-dimensional and quantum materials. His research has advanced the understanding of exciton–polaritons, hybrid quasiparticles that arise from strong coupling between light and matter, opening new pathways for next-generation photonic and quantum technologies. Vinod acknowledges the collaborative efforts of his students, post-doctoral researchers and colleagues that have helped him progress the field of light-matter interaction in low-dimensional materials.
In addition to his AAAS Fellowship, Vinod is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America). His work spans fundamental physics and applied photonics, with implications for quantum information science, sensing, and advanced optoelectronic devices.
Vinod has authored numerous high-impact publications and is an active contributor to the scientific community through mentorship, collaboration, and leadership. His group’s interdisciplinary approach bridges physics, materials science, and engineering, driving innovation in both fundamental science and emerging technologies. He has mentored 22 PhD students, 20 post-doctoral fellows and over 40 undergraduate students.
A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor, bestowed upon members by their peers for scientifically or socially distinguished achievements. Vinod joins a distinguished cohort of scientists, engineers, and innovators whose work continues to shape the future of science and society.
Congratulations and best wishes to Vinod Menon.
Mor details about Vinod’s work can be found at: https://lanmp.org
University of Hyderabad

UoH Alumnus Dr. Rahul Ramachandran Nair Honoured as Part of ALICE Collaboration’s 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

The University of Hyderabad (UoH) takes pride in celebrating the achievement of its alumnus Dr. Rahul Ramachandran Nair, who is among the scientists recognised as part of the ALICE Collaboration at CERN, Geneva, which has been awarded the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has been awarded to the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb collaborations at CERN, recognising decades of collective scientific endeavour at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The prize is shared among thousands of scientists across these major international experiments.
Dr. Rahul Ramachandran Nair completed his Master’s in Physics at the University of Hyderabad during 2011–2013.
The recognition reflects the scale and complexity of modern experimental high-energy physics. Precision measurements at the energy and luminosity frontiers require advanced detector systems, large-scale data infrastructure, theoretical insight, and the coordinated efforts of thousands of specialists across continents. Large international collaborations such as ALICE, therefore, form the foundation of discovery in contemporary particle physics.

The ALICE experiment at the LHC seeks to understand the conditions that existed in the earliest moments of the universe. While astronomers observe distant galaxies to look back in time, ALICE takes a complementary approach by colliding heavy nuclei, such as lead, at ultra-relativistic energies. These collisions briefly recreate the extreme conditions of temperature and energy density believed to have existed shortly after the Big Bang.
Under such conditions, ordinary hadronic matter dissolves into its constituent quarks and gluons, forming a state known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The study of this state, through its thermodynamic properties, collective behaviour, and particle production mechanisms, offers important insights into the earliest phases of the universe.
Dr. Nair’s contribution to the ALICE Collaboration centred on the development of a sophisticated monitoring tool for the ALICE forward trigger during the LHC’s Run 2 data-taking period. This tool played a critical role in determining the quality and usability of the collected data. It served as a vital gatekeeping system, helping identify which datasets were reliable enough to be used for physics analyses. Such work forms the foundation for the scientific results produced by the collaboration.
His broader research, carried out during his doctoral work, focused on the thermalisation of the Quark-Gluon Plasma, an extraordinarily rapid process through which this primordial state of matter reaches local thermal equilibrium. His scientific interests include QCD phase transitions, confinement mechanisms, particle production in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, and the application of advanced statistical methods to heavy-ion physics.
Dr. Nair has also worked on the study of collisions involving deformed nuclei, where the geometry of the colliding system adds further complexity to the underlying physics and offers rich possibilities for understanding the behaviour of strongly interacting matter.
Dr. Rahul Ramachandran Nair completed his B.Sc. at S.B. College, Changanacherry in 2010, before joining the University of Hyderabad for his M.Sc. in Physics. He later moved to the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), Warsaw, Poland, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2020. He subsequently continued as a Scientific Associate with the ALICE group at NCBJ through 2023 and held a research position at the University of Culiacan, Mexico, based at CERN, through 2024.
Dr. Nair’s association with the ALICE Collaboration and his contribution to a globally recognised scientific effort is a matter of pride for the University of Hyderabad. His journey reflects the strong academic foundation provided by UoH and the significant role played by its alumni in advancing frontier research in fundamental science. University of Hyderabad

Two alumni of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), Dr. Jimin George and Dr. Suvarna Ramachandran, have brought pride to the University by being part of the prestigious Muon g-2 collaborations, which have been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
The Breakthrough Prize, often described as the “Oscars of Science,” is regarded as the world’s largest science prize. It is awarded annually in three categories — Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences, and Mathematics — to honour path-breaking contributions that expand human understanding of the universe.
This year, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has been awarded to the Muon g-2 collaborations at CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Fermilab. The prize amount of 3 million US dollars will be shared among approximately 300 scientists who contributed to this major international scientific effort.
Among the honoured scientists are Dr. Jimin George and Dr. Suvarna Ramachandran, who completed their Master’s in Physics at the University of Hyderabad during 2007–2009.
The Muon g-2 experiment is one of the most precise and challenging experiments in modern particle physics. It measures the value of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment with extraordinary accuracy. The experiment was first carried out in the 1960s at CERN, later in the 1990s at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and most recently at Fermilab, where it achieved an ultra-high precision of 127 parts per billion.
A muon is a fundamental particle with the same electric charge as an electron, but almost 200 times more massive. Unlike electrons, muons are not part of ordinary matter around us. They are produced during high-energy collisions of subatomic particles and exist only for a very short time — about 2.2 microseconds — before decaying into other particles.
Each muon has a magnetic moment, making it behave like an extremely tiny magnet. Measuring this magnetic moment with very high precision is important because it helps scientists test the limits of the Standard Model of particle physics, the theory that describes the fundamental particles and forces in nature.
For the experiment, muons are made to travel very close to the speed of light. They are guided into a circular ring of 45 metres in circumference, which is completely evacuated using vacuum pumps. A highly uniform magnetic field of 1.45 Tesla is applied throughout the ring to keep the muons moving in a circular path. This magnetic field is produced using a superconducting magnet cooled to about –270°C with liquid helium, with a current of nearly 5000 amperes flowing through the superconducting coils.
At this speed, the muons make nearly 7 million trips per second around the ring. As they decay, they produce positrons and neutrinos. The positrons are detected using particle detectors called calorimeters placed around the ring. By combining the precise measurement of the magnetic field with the time distribution of the detected positrons, scientists calculate the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon.
The experiment requires not only advanced scientific knowledge but also extraordinary engineering, computing, and data analysis capabilities. The high-energy particles and their decay products produce significant radiation, and therefore the experiment is controlled from a specially protected control room with thick concrete shielding. The detector accumulated petabytes of data, and the analysis took several years to complete.
Dr. Jimin George joined the Muon g-2 collaboration in 2015 as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Suvarna Ramachandran joined the collaboration in 2018 as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago. Both were based at Fermi National Laboratory till 2020 and contributed to several crucial stages of the experiment, including building the experiment, commissioning, data collection, and data analysis.
Both UoH alumni are currently serving as Assistant Professors at Alliance University, Bengaluru.
Their contribution to a globally recognised scientific collaboration is a matter of great pride for the University of Hyderabad. It reflects the strong academic foundation provided by UoH’s School of Physics and highlights the important role played by its alumni in advancing frontier research in fundamental science.
University of Hyderabad

Visit of Faculty and students of Gajwel Degree College to the School of Physics, UoH on 17-3-2026


The School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, has been actively organizing academic visits every year for students from schools and undergraduate and postgraduate colleges across various states in India. The programme aims to promote scientific awareness and encourage curiosity about Physics. The primary objective is to provide academic exposure, showcase ongoing research activities and sophisticated common research facilities, and to strengthen practical understanding among physics students. Over the years, this initiative and platform have motivated several students to apply to prestigious institutes to pursue Master's and Ph.D. programmes.

As a part of the upcoming National Science Day celebrations, the School of Physics organized and hosted the academic visit for 60 B.Sc. students, accompanied by their teachers from Government Degree College, Gajwel, SiddiPet District. All the experimental and computational facilities available were shown and explained to the students. The half-day interaction enthused the students to gain insights into the School's ongoing scientific and research activities, providing them with much-needed exposure to Physics beyond the textbooks. This programme created a platform, an opportunity and awareness for Students from rural background, ignited interest for physics which is very much essential.

Zenith Astronomy Club Events (Jan-2025 to Jan-2026)

The Zenith Astronomy Club🔭 of the School of Physics in collaboration with the Experiments Forum🧪 of the Junior Science Club🔬 at the Centre for Integrated Studies is participating in the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2026.
Join our Physics Circus🎪 among the STEM stalls on 26th January 2026 for some fun demos.
See you there! 🥳

Thanks and regards
Aniruth Sreenivasan
Interim Convener
Zenith Astronomy Club
School of Physics
University of Hyderabad