In the current academic year, many of our students participated in a spectrum of events outside the college. This comprises of prize winning performances (including an over all shield) and participation in seminars and workshops One of our students was one among eight students from LDC to have the honour of participating in the Science Conclave held at IIIT Allahabad.

2009 by Prof. V Ramakrishnan, Dept. of Laser Studies, School of Physics, MKU, Madurai. Prof. V. Kumar, Crystal Growth Center, Chennai delivered the key note address. Special arrangements were made by LYNX club on 22 Jul 2009 for observing solar

Courses Offered B.Sc. (Special) Physics B.Sc. Physics with computer

Applications M.Sc. Physics Ph.D. Post Graduate Diploma in

Remote Sensing and GIS (PGDRS&GIS)

Dual Degree – M.Sc + PGDRS&GIS

Beyond the classroom

Janus Club Lynx Club Energy Club PG Association

Service Learning

Programmes

Motivating school students to learn Physics

Help Desk in School GIS based Community

Projects Service Corner

Events Every year the department

organizes a Workshop for I year to develop their problem solving and laboratory skills

Announcements

A grant of Rs. 7 lakhs (out

of Rs 35 Lakhs attracted by the college form DBT) is allotted to the department under the ‘Star College Scheme’ to enhance the UG programme.

M.Phil to be introduced in

the year 2010-2011. State level seminar on Nano

Science is to be held on 15 Feb 2010.

Inter Collegiate Meet is to

be held on 16 Feb. 2010.

Dr. Beulah Rajkumar and Dr. Nimma Elizebath are

recognized research guides. All India Radio as a part of celebrating the

International year of Astronomy 2009 conducted a program ‘Ellai Illa Vanam’ in collaboration with Tamil Nadu Science Forum. Two of our faculty members participated in the above program.

Two major research grants by DST and UGC are in the stage of completion.

Three research articles have been published in International Journals.

The department has initiated Energy Auditing at Lady Doak College through an UBCHEA grant of Rs. 1,94,000/-

Achievements…

eclipse with a 5” telescope followed by an essay competition on the topic “Solar Eclipse – Live Experience”. A talk on Fundamentals of Microcontrollers by Dr. A Rajendran, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, followed by demonstation. Prof. Charles Joenathan of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, USA gave an inspiring talk on Speckles. He further encouraged and motivated the students to work hard and get into research.

Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary was celebrated as “Renewable energy Day” by the energy club. Mr. M. Thangavelu Deputy General Manager, TN Energy Development Agency was the chief guest. Interdepartmental competitions were also organized. Students from various schools exhibited models that displayed ways to conserve energy and make use of the natural resources The PG association was inaugurated on 29 Aug

The department aims in developing academically competent and professionally motivated women leaders, equipped with objective and critical thinking that compassionately foster the scientific temper with a sense of social responsibility.

News in brief…

ISSUE #1 Jan 2010

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A few réminiscences….

SMART MATERIALS

Smart materials and systems can sense and respond to the environment around them in a predictable and useful manner. With smart materials, Your walls will have ears Your dolls may tan in the Sun You may order for brand new arteries The cracks in your home reforms by itself Besides turning Science fiction to facts, this innovative field now plays an important role in waste reduction (Active Dissembly). Time-Temparature indicators are now used worldwide to ensure the quality of vaccines. Work is being carried out on synthetic materials with a memory effect (Shape Memory Alloys). Although Smart materials have been researched for decades, commercial exploitation has been slowed down due to the inter-disciplinary nature of the subject! Moral of the story: You are Smart if you are able to repair yourself!

FUN WITH PHYSICS! A lean boy refused to run any more. When his mother asked him why,

he replied, “I heard that the faster you go, the thinner you become”. Heisenberg is out for a drive when he’s stopped by a traffic cop. The

cop says, “Do you know how fast you were going?” Heisenberg says, “No, but I know where I am”.

MEMORIES…. Hi, I am Priya T, who was a student of the department from 1990-’93. I was recently going through the website and was quite thrilled to see that some of my favourite professors are still there and Janus club, of which I was an active member, is also going strong.:-) About me: After my B.Sc. in LDC, I did my MBA at Thiagarajar School of Management. I worked at various organizations and am currently working with Tata Interactive Systems and am based in the US. My designation is Deputy Practice Head. I have been in many cities in India and in the US ever since I left LDC, but many of the lessons and skills I learned there still stand me in good stead. I wish the department and college all the very best. Priya Thiagarajan Tata Interactive Systems

Do you know?

The Venus flytrap (a carnivorous plant that catches insects and arachnids) snares its prey by using the elastic instability in its leaves to snap from concave to convex in a fraction of a second. This process inspired two polymer scientists at the University of Massachussets to design an array of microlens shells that quickly switch from one curvature to the opposite. Mater. 19,3589).

To fabricate the array, Doughlas P.

Holmes and Alfred J. Crosby first created a photo-lithographic pattern of cylindrical posts on a silicon wafer and molded onto it a sheet of poly (dimethylsiloxane) or PDMS, a silicone elastomer. Then, while stretching the PDMS layer, they took a second layer and bonded it to the first. When released, the bonded silicone sheets buckled and made an array of convex microlenses.

When a critical amount of stress was

applied to the array, the tiny lenses snapped from convex to concave or vice versa in roughly 30ms. Crosby and Holmes have demonstrated the relationship between the transition time and the physical properties of microlenses, so that, as the size of the lenses shrink, their reaction times will shorten as well. The arrays could be used in optical display applications or chemical sensors. Optics & Photonics News Feb’08, Vol 19, No.2

In July 2008, when our department was upgraded to a Research Centre, we were exceptionally privileged to have Dr. Rohini GodBhole of The Department of High Energy Physics, IISc, Bangalore, an eminent Particle Physicist, involved in physics research for over three and a half decades, to inaugurate Our Research Lab…According to her,

‘The importance of research being conducted in the same environment where UG students are studying basic sciences, attracting young people into science, making them realize what fun it is doing science can hardly be over emphasized. A college named after a lady with a woman as the head of the department enhances the participation of woman in science.

India’s remarkable development can be sustained effectively only when it is backed by a growth in quality human resource. We do not want to remain only as a nation of provider of services but a provider of leadership in new developments and discoveries in Science and Technology. This means we have to continuously evolve strategies to attract students to science.

With a research centre in a UG college, young students can get exposure to methodology of science by observing people doing research, being a witness to and participate in scientific meets and sometimes participate in the research itself. Of late the experience of researchers at many research Institutes and Universities in India and abroad, is that some of the path breaking research has had a beginning in projects by undergraduates.

The nature of research, too, has changed due to the progress and development in IT. It is possible row for one to use resources in one place sitting thousands of kilometers away. High Energy Physics, Astronomy, Biological Sciences are particularly suited to this. For example, the most important experiment in the subject of high energy physics will start on Oct 26, 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. The experiments will generate a petabyte of data daily. These data will be analysed across the globe through grids, in which everybody can participate. Now with research centers in individual college research can be certainly distributed.

I am sure that this research centre has for sure a very bright future.’

Physics.dept@gmail.com /Ph: 091 - 452 - 2530527/ http://www.ladydoak.org/dept_physics.htm