Biswa Ranjan Nag | |
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| Born | (1932-10-01)1 October 1932 Comilla,Chittagong division, British India |
| Died | 6 April 2004(2004-04-06) (aged 71) Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Studies onsemiconductors |
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Biswa Ranjan Nag (1 October 1932 – 6 April 2004) was an Indian physicist and theSisir Kumar Mitra chair professor atRajabazar Science College,University of Calcutta. Known for his research insemiconductor physics, Nag was an elected fellow of theIndian National Science Academy andIndian Academy of Sciences. TheCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Physical Sciences in 1974.[1][note 1]
Born on 1 October 1932 to Sailabala and Satyaranjan Nag atComilla, a city along theDhaka-Chittagong Highway in the undividedBengal of theBritish India (presently in Bangladesh), B. R. Nag did his graduate studies atPresidency College, Calcutta, during 1949–51 and earned a master's degree in technology (M.Tech.) from the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics (IRE) at theRajabazar Science College campus of theUniversity of Calcutta in 1954.[2] He started his career in 1956 as a faculty member at IRE and simultaneously pursued doctoral studies, mentored by Arun K. Choudhury. In between, he spent one year at theUniversity of Wisconsin, obtaining an MS in 1959. Mr. Nag returned to Calcutta to resume his doctoral work, and earned his PhD in 1961. Continuing his teaching career, he became a full professor in 1968.[3] Further research earned him aDoctor of Science degree from Calcutta University in 1972.[4] He served out his regular academic career at the university and continued his association past his superannuation in 1997 as its Sisir Kumar Mitra professor.[5] In between, he also served as a Commonwealth visiting professor atBangor, Gwynedd.[4]
Nag was married to Mridula Roy Choudhury, and the couple had two children, Biswadeep and Mriduchanda. He died on 6 April 2004 in Kolkata, at the age of 71.[2]
Nag's work focused on semiconductors, and it helped in widening our understanding of the electricaltransport phenomena in those highelectrical resistant solids.[6] During his early years at Calcutta University, he led a group of students who were engaged in the studies on microwave measurements of semiconductor properties and did advanced research onGunn effect andmicrowave radiation.[2] He demonstrated the temperature independence oftwo-dimensional electron gas and itsalloy scattering limited mobility which was a first time discovery.[4][7] His studies revealed the non-parabolic nature of electron energy dispersion in narrowquantum wells, and this modified the theory ofinterface roughness scattering limited mobility for Quantum Wells with finite barrier height and Well width.Liquid phase Epitaxy Semiconducting III–V compounds,acousto-electric effect and free carrier absorption,Gini ratio andSi coefficient related to hot-electron galvanomagnetic transport were some of the other areas of his research.[2] He contributed to the development of electron transport theory related to semiconductors and developed aMonte Carlo method for the computation of coefficients related to velocity correlation, diffusion and noise parameters.[3] His body of work is reported to have relevance to the fields ofmicrowave communications andradar, especially in the development of microwave semiconductor devices.[8] His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[note 2] and the article repository of theIndian Academy of Sciences has listed 190 of them.[9] He authored three monographs,Theory of electrical transport in semiconductors,[10]Physics of Quantum Well Devices[11] andElectron Transport in Compound Semiconductors[12] of which the last mentioned is reported to be a significant reference text for researchers.[2] He also contributed chapters to books published by others[13][14][15] and his work has drawn citations in a number of books.[16][17][18][19][20]
Nag, a founder fellow of theIndian National Academy of Engineering,[2] received the J. C. Bose Memorial Prize of theBritish Institution of Radio Engineers in 1964.[3] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1974.[21] He was selected for theJawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1975,[22] and theIndian National Science Academy elected him as a fellow in 1978;[23] the academy would honor him again in 1993 with the INSA Prize for Materials Science.[24] He became an elected fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences.[25] The department of radio physics and electronics of the University of Calcutta instituted an annual conference,International Conference on Computers and devices for Communication (CODEC), in his honor in 1998, a year after Nag retired from academic service.[5]
B.R. Nag (6 December 2012).Electron Transport in Compound Semiconductors. Springer Science & Business Media.ISBN 978-3-642-81416-7.
Authority control databases: Academics |
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