Department of Physics

About the Department

Dept. data last updated on :20/03/2024

VISION

The department aims to excel and achieve a prominent status in Physics teaching and research.


MISSION

To build a creative and stimulating environment conducive for teaching and research.


To impart high quality Physics education and equip students for global Physics competence.


To promote research and creative activities among faculty and students.


To develop state of art facilities for teaching and research.


To sensitise students to contribute for the welfare of society through competence in Physics.



The Physics Department of the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (UP), India was established in 1912.  The Department has rich teaching and research traditions since its inception and the first Ph.D. in Physics was awarded in 1926. Eminent Scientists who at some point of time were the faculty member / student of the Department are Prof. Wali Mohammad, Prof. Rudolf Samual, Prof. P. S. Gill, Prof. R. K. Asundi, Prof. P. Venkateshwarlu, Prof. A. N. Mitra, Prof. H. S. Hans, Prof. Rais Ahmad, Prof. M. Z. R. Khan, Prof. M. L. Sehgal, Prof. P.I. John (Padam Shri), Prof. M.S.Z. Chaghtai, Prof. M. Shafi, Prof. Israr Ahmed, Prof. S. K. Singh, Prof. Tariq Aziz, Prof. R. Prasad, Prof. Siraj Hassan, Prof. M. Sami etc. Presently there are 8 Professors, 8 Associate Professors, 14 Assistant Professors, 4 Guest Teachers and about 60 Research Scholars in the Department.


The Department offers six semesters undergraduate B. Sc. (Hons.) and four semesters postgraduate M. Sc. courses. The choice based credit system (CBCS) has been implemented. The intake for the undergraduate and post graduate programmes is 120 and 50 respectively. Besides these, the Department also offers Ph.D. program in various research areas of experimental and theoretical physics.


Over the years, the growing international reputation of the Department has enabled it to join several international collaborations such as ALICE, CBM, PANDA etc., with Universities like University of Valencia, Spain; University of Tokyo, Japan; Universitat Erlangen, Germany etc. The faculty members are also involved in national collaborations viz. India based Neutrino Observatory Project. Faculty members are also collaborating with the scientists working at TIFR Mumbai, BARC Mumbai, IUAC New Delhi, VECC Kolkata, IUCAA Pune, UGC-DAE-CSR Kolkata & Indore, JNU New Delhi, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Ropar etc.


The Department's illustrious legacy and its continuous stride in academic excellence over many decades have been duly acknowledged by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India and Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi, India resulting in the endowment of financial assistance through schemes such as DRS-SAP, DSA phases I, II & III, COSIST, FIST and PURSE. These grants have helped the Department in strengthening the infrastructure and the procurement of state of the art instruments for research as well as undergraduate and postgraduate laboratories. Some of the important instruments in various laboratories are FTIR (Tensor 37, Bruker) Spectrometer, X-ray Diffractometer (6100-Shimadzu), Scanning Microscope (DM 2500 M & DM 6000 M), High Power Nd: YAG Laser (Brilliant B), Telescope (CGE Pro 14"), UV-VIS-NIR Spectrometer (Lambda 950, Perkin Elmer), Simultaneous Thermal Analyser (STA- 8000, Perkin Elmer), Andor Mechelle 5000 Monochromator with ICCD and Acton 0.5 Monochromator attached with PMT, Cryo-cooler for low temperature measurement, alpha, beta and gamma spectrometers etc.


The Department has an excellent seminar library with more than 13,000 reference books and nearly 10,000 bound journals. The seminar library has seating capacity of one hundred persons and about 400 membership of students and teachers.


Research in the Department is being pursued in many of the major contemporary areas of experimental and theoretical physics, viz, Nuclear Physics, High Energy Physics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Astrophysics, Photonics and Non Linear Dynamics. The research groups involved in these areas, broadly clubbed together, are as under:


Experimental Nuclear Physics:

Prof. B.P. Singh

Prof. Isar Ahmad Rizvi


Theoretical Nuclear and Particle Physics: 

Prof. Anisul Ain Usmani

Prof. Mohammad Sajjad Athar

Dr. Abbas Ali

Dr. Nasra Neelofar (Women's College)

Dr. Shakeb Ahmad (Women's College)

Dr. Huma Haider (Women's College)

Dr. Rafi Alam

Dr. Raktim Abir

Dr. Sudhir Kumar Gupta


Atomic, Molecular and Laser Physics: 

Prof. Shabbir Ahmad

Dr. S. M. Afzal

Dr. S. Jabeen Shah Mohammad


Experimental High Energy Physics:

Prof. Shakeel Ahmad

Dr. Nazeer Ahmad

Dr. Danish Azmi


Experimental Condensed Matter Physics:

Prof. Shahid Husain

Prof. Faiyazur Rahman

Dr. Tufail Ahmad

Dr. M. Wasi Khan

Dr. Shikha Chauhan

Dr. Arham Shareef Ahmed

Dr. Jai Prakash


Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics:

Dr. S. S. Z. Ashraf


Photonics: 

Dr. Faraz Ahmad Inam


Non-Linear Dynamics:

Dr. Haider Hasan Jafari


Plasma Physics:

Dr. Saba Hussain (Women's College)