Abstract
The black art of thin films exhibiting whimsical properties and thus called ‘the fourth state of matter’ enticed the author to a challenge to unravel the mysteries of matter createdab-initio on a nanoscale. Nucleation and growth studies of evaporated and sputtered films (both polycrystalline and epitaxial) and the effects of kinetic energy, angle of incidence, electric field, substrate agitation, formation of metastable and amorphous structures, etc led to exciting discoveries. The fields of amorphous metal alloy and semiconducting films were thus born. Electron and optical transport investigations on pure and doped metal, semiconducting, oxide and polymer films established a variety of new phenomena of which the mean free path effects and specular scattering of conduction electrons in epitaxial metal films, giant thermopower in quenched metal films, sputter quenching, giant photocontraction effect in amorphous Ge-chalcogenide films, enhancement of superconducting transition temperature in transition metal films, nanosize multi layer coating (the first known superlattices) are noteworthy. A variety of new deposition processes such as solution growth of polymer films, solution growth of chalcogenide and oxide films, spray pyrolysis, coprecipitation of multicomponent oxides (for thick films), activated reactive evaporation/magnetron sputtering were innovated. This lecture will share the excitement of the contributions by the author, his 60 Ph.D students and a number of post doctoral fellows and faculty members at the Thin Film Laboratory, IIT Delhi and the Microscience Laboratory at IIT Kharagpur.
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Distinguished Materials Scientist Award Lecture presented at the MRSI Meeting, Kharagpur on February 8, 1995.
Born in 1933 at Chahal Kalan, Panjab (now Pakistan), Kasturi Lal Chopra experienced along with his family the fiery turbulance of partition to reach Delhi. After topping in the matric examination from DAV School in 1948, he went on to earn his B. Sc. (Hons.) in 1952, and M. Sc. (1954) in Physics from Delhi University. As a World University Service Fellow, he took his Ph. D in Low Temperature Physics from the University of British Columbia, Canada. After being a post doctoral fellow at Royal Military College of Canada, and Max Planck Guest Scientist at the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin, he took up the assignments of a Group Leader at Philco-Food Scientific Laboratory. Blue Bell in 1962 and later a Staff Scientist of Ledgemont Laboratory, Kennecott Copper Corp., USA. The IIT Delhi invited him in 1970 as a Senior Professor to head the Physics Department and establish a school of Solid State Physics. He founded the Thin Film Laboratory and served IIT Delhi for 17 years in various capacities as Head, Physics Department, Energy Centre, and Dean, Post Graduate Studies and Industrial Research and Development. He was appointed Director of IIT Kharagpur in 1987 and is presently serving a second term. He continues to actively pursue R/D activities along with research students and faculty in the Thin Film Laboratory in IIT Delhi, as also in the Microscience Laboratory founded by him at IIT Kharagpur. He has supervised over 60 Ph.D Theses, published over 400 papers and authored/coauthored: “Thin Film Solar Cells”, “Thin Film Phenomena”, “Thin Film Device Applications”, and has edited four other books. Several published papers are now Classic Citations and “Thin Film Phenomena” continues for the last 25 years to be considered a “Bible” of the field. Innovative developments of Prof. Chopra and colleagues have resulted in five US Patents, a dozen knowhow transfers to industry in India and abroad. He has served on the editorial boards of several international journals. He has lectured extensively abroad in various universities and R/D centres and consulted to several international companies. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian Academy of Engineering. He has delivered several memorial lectures and is the recipient of several awards: Bhatnagar Prize (Physics), Bhatnagar Award (Energy), FICCI Award (Science & Technology), Bhasin Award (Energy), Bhabha Award (Applied Sciences), INSA Krishnan Memorial Lecture Award.
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Chopra, K.L. My experiments with thin films—the nanostate of matter. Bull. Mater. Sci. 18, 639–668 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02744802
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02744802