Academic Qualifications:
| SNO | Degree | Subject | CGP/Marks | Year | University | Additional Particular |
| 1 | BE | Metallurgy | | 1996 | NIT Durgapur | |
| 2 | ME | Metallurgy | | 1998 | IISc Bangalore | |
| 3 | PhD | Materials Engineering | | 2004 | Technical University Eindhoven, The Netherlands | |
| | | | | | | |
Thesis and Guide details:
Details of CSIR Fellowship/ Associateship held, if any or from other sources/ agencies.
Significant foreign assignments:
(a) Significant contributions to science and/ or technology development by the nominee
based on the work done in India during most part of last 5 years:
The understanding of highly complex diffusion processes in multicomponent material systems represent an
unsolved area and a challenge to materials engineer due to lack of proper analytical techniques that can deal
with these complexities. The candidate pioneered a way forward to address this important problem that is key
to the development of new generation alloys and their reliabiity in actual engineerign applications.
The development by the candidate in the last five years is outlined below in details. This is seeded by the
discoveries of unknown phenomenon related to the Kirkendall effect in solid-state diffusion during the PhD
work of Prof. Aloke Paul. During this work, experimental evidence was presented to show that the inert
markers used for studying relative mobilities of the components can split into more than one plane. This led to
development of several new models by different groups around the world bringing new insights to the
phenomenological diffusion process. This is now part of gradute level course curriculum and incorporated in
new books written on diffusion in solids (see Annexure 16h on further details of other reaserch
accomplishments in Prof. Paul’s group).
After joing the Indian Institute of Science, Prof Paul developed a physico-chemical (mathematical) model
explaining spliiting of the Kirkendall markers and relating, for the first time, the microstructural evolution with
relative mobilities of the componnets. This gives a new lease of life in the field of solid-state diffusion, following
which one can study the materials in real applications without even using inert markers but just by analyizng
the microstructure evolution in an interdiffusion zone. This also helps to study the exact role of external factors
such as electric current and stress along with thermodynamic driving forces in multilayered thin films without
using any inert marker to locate the Kirkendall plane, which remained a challenge for research engineers in
electronics industry for several decades. This model is also discussed in the new book in this field (see
Annexure 16h).
In last five years, through a series of publications [1-4], Prof. Paul developed a new pseudo-binary approach
for estimation of the diffusion coefficients in multicomponent systems and proposed an analyitcal framework to
study diffusion controlled evolution of the product phases in multicomponnet inhomogeneous material in
combination with previously developed physico-chemical model. This is important to understand the physicomecanical
properties of complex material systems in various applications, as outlined below:
[1] A. Paul, A pseudo-binary approach to study interdiffusion and the Kirkendall effect in multicomponent
systems, Philosophical Magazine, 93 (2013) 2297-2315.
[2] S. Santra and A. Paul, Estimation of intrinsic diffusion coefficients in a pseudo-binary diffusion couple,
Scripta Materialia 103 (2015) 18-21.
[3] P. Kiruthika and A. Paul, A pseudo-binary interdiffusion study in the β-Ni(Pt)Al phase, Philosophical
Magazine Letters 95 (2015) 138-144
[4] P. Kiruthika, S.K. Makineni, C. Srivastava, K. Chattopadhyay, A.
(b) Impact of the contributions in the field concerned:
Ever since the first report of solid state diffusion in 1889, this field has witnessed significant growth but in terms
of laying down the fundamentals and mechanisms for simple model systems. In the technological world,
however, the simple model systems do not work as most often the important engineering alloys are
multicomponent and inhomogeneous in nature. In the absence of a suitable theoretical framework to tackle
diffusion parameters in multicomponent systems, at present there is an unbridgeable wide gap between
groups dealing with the theory of diffusion and engineers involved in designing new material systems. The new
powerful analytical framework developed by Prof. Paul’s group is capable of bridging this gap in physical
metallurgy. For the first time, it provides a platform for meaningful interpretation of diffusion data obtained
experimentally in technologically important multicomponent engineering alloys and correlates it with
microstructural evolution. This breakthrough provides a useful link to understand structure-property
correlations in complex engineering alloys from atomic to mesoscopic length scales. In view of the above, this
new analytical framework is of great scientific and technological significance.
Like previously developed other models by Prof. Paul’s group, this analytical method dealing with
multicomponent diffusion is being accepted by the research community and expected to be incorporated in
new books written on this topic.
Places where work of last 5 years has been referred/ cited in Books, Reviews:
Names of the industries in which the technology (ies) has (have) been used :
The achievements already been recognised by Awards by any learned body:
The Awardee a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy/Indian Academy of Sciences/National
Academy of Sciences/Others:
The Awardee delivered invited lecture(s) in India/abroad and/or chaired any scientific
Internatiional Conference Symposium:
List of Awardee's 10 most significant publications.
List of Awardee's 5 most significant publications during the last 5 years
List of Awardee's 5 most significant publications from out of work done in India
during the last five years:
Complete list of publications in standard refereed journals:
Complete list of publications with foreign collaborators (indicating your status
as author):
List of papers published in Conferences /Symposia/ Seminars, etc:
List of the most outstanding Technical Reports/ Review Articles:
Statement regarding collaboration with scientists abroad:
Total number of patents granted in last five years.
Details of Books published: