Team

Pranav R. Shirhatti

Principal Investigator

(Associate Professor)
Email: pranavrs at tifrh dot res dot in
Phone: +91 040 2020 3061

My research interests lie in the areas of energy transfer processes in molecule-surface collisions, elementary chemical reactions on metal surfaces, developing atom scattering based surface probing methods and developing tools for high resolution molecular spectroscopy.

In the past I have worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the department of Dynamics at surfaces at Institute for Physical Chemistry and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. I did my PhD and MSc (integrated) at the Dept of chemical sciences in TIFR Mumbai, India, where I worked on laser spectroscopic characterization of weak hydrogen bonded molecular complexes. I did my undergraduate studies, B.Sc. Hons in Chemistry, at the University of Delhi, St. Stephen’s college.

Ardra P. S.

(Integrated PhD candidate, Physics subject board)

Email: ardraps at tifrh dot res dot in

I am currently working on developing schemes for preparing state selected preparation of reactants in molecular beams using quantum cascade lasers as the excitation source. Besides this I am also working on developing a frequency stabilized External Cavity Diode Laser to be used as an injection seed for pulsed ns-OPOs. These state selected excitation schemes are being developed for understanding the dynamics of recombination reactions on metal surfaces.

I have completed my BSc in physics from P.S.G. College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore

Minali

(PhD candidate, Chemistry subject board)

Email: minaligorsi at tifrh dot res dot in 

My research aims to explore the ground state dissociation dynamics and activation barriers of CO₂ on Cu(100) and Cu(111) surfaces, building upon previous studies on Cu(110) in our lab. This study will also be extend to stepped Cu surfaces to gain insights into reaction dynamics. Another part of my work is to build a narrow pulse-width, high peak intensity piezoelectric molecular beam source. As a part of this work, I am also working on design and testing of the high voltage switches needed for operating such sources. A part of my work will also involve exploring the effects of internal excitation, such as vibrational modes, on the CO₂ dissociation.

I obtained my M.Sc. and B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from D.A.V. College, Chandigarh. As a part of my master’s project, I worked on the diverse sensing behavior of a Schiff base receptor toward Zn2+ ions

Balamurugan M.

(Post-Doctoral researcher)

Email: mbalamurugan at tifrh dot res dot in

My current research work focuses on developing tools for a Neutral atom microscopy (NAM). In particular am working towards developing an in-situ sample cleaning system, a detector with capability of measuring angle resolved scattered distributions and exploring the use of 2-dimensional materials as atomic mirrors.

I completed PhD degree in Chemistry from National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan ROC where I worked on developing plasmonic materials for Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering based sensors. I obtained my M.Sc. (specialization in Physical Chemistry) degree from University of Madras, Chennai, Bachelor degree in Chemistry from Bishop Heber college, Trichy.

Avinash Kumar

(Post-Doctoral Researcher)

Email: avinashk at tifrh dot res dot in

My current work is towards developing, testing of a prototype of high performance and cost effective wavemeter based on the multistage CFFI design developed in our lab previously. These devices are very valuable for laser diagnostics and high resolution atomic/molecular spectroscopy experiments. The targeted specifications are to achieve an accuracy better than 500 MHz, precision better than 10 MHz, wavelength range 400 to 1100 nm and measurement rates greater than 30 samples/second. This project is partly supported by the Quantum Technology Foundation grant.

My PhD work (Nov 2024, TIFRH) involved developing high intensity and narrow linewidth near and mid-IR OPO/A systems to enable quantum state selected molecule-surface scattering experiments. I obtained my M.Sc.and B.Sc. degree in Physics with specialization in electronics from DDU Gorakhpur University.

Sumanta Roy

(Project-B, Chemistry subject board)

Project: Designing a molecular beam source for liquid samples and building a ion detection setup for characterizing molecular beam sources.
 

Sai Vijay Mocherla

(Project-B, Chemistry subject board)

Project: Study of inelastic scattering of N2 from Cu surfaces using spatial ion imaging techniques, refining of the ion imaging setup and developing fast high voltage switches needed for charged particle extraction in ion imaging experiments.