Ms. Parul Sharma D/o Mr. Narinder Sharma and Mrs. Suman Lata R/o 134/2 Shiv Nagar, Talab Tillo, Jammu has been declared qualified for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Physics by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), Katra. She worked on the topic “Synthesis, Structural and Spectral Studies of Doped Alkali-Alkaline Hybrid Vanadates” under the supervision of Dr. Kamni Pathania, School of Physics, SMVDU.

Dr. Jitendra Sharma, Faculty, School of Physics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU) Katra, delivered a lecture at the prestigious “The Pittsburgh Conference & Exposition” aka “PITTCON 2020” held at McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois, USA from 1st to 5th of March 2020. In a lecture titled “Rare Earth Ions Doped Phosphor-Polymer Nanocomposites”, he presented results from the on-going research on phosphor-polymer nanocomposites in the laboratory at SMVDU.

The Pittcon, an annual international conference and exposition on laboratory science, attracts participants from world’s leading industry, academia, government institutions and research laboratories from over 90 countries. The multifaceted event serves a very diverse constituency comprising of life sciences, industrial manufacturing, cannabis, environmental, forensic, art preservation, and food sciences besides dealing with the fundamental aspects of spectroscopic investigations in chemistry and physics.

The conference offered an opportunity for Dr. Sharma to meet and interact with various research groups working in the field and also get the know-how of the new analytical tools and instruments offered by various industries active in the field.

Dr Sharma’s visit was funded by Professional Development Assistance (PDA) grant of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (Katra), Jammu & Kashmir, India.

Ms. Preasha Rajput has been declared qualified for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Physics by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU).The candidate has worked on the topic, titled “Synthesis, Structural and Spectral Studies of Rare Earth/Transition Metal Doped Alkaline Earth Zincates” under the supervision of Dr. Kamni Pathania. The researcher has published her research findings in the SCIE and scopus indexed journals of international repute. She has also presented her work in national and international conferences. She has expressed her gratitude to SMVD University for providing all facilities and necessary support for carrying out the research work. Prof. R.K. Sinha, Vice-Chancellor, SMVDU and committee members congratulated the candidate and wished her a bright future ahead.

SMVDU Katra, Jammu 19. Dr. Pankaj Biswas, Assistant Professor, School of Physics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, presented a research paper titled “The structural and spectral study of LiSrVO4:Tb3+ phosphor for UV-shifted imaging devices” in the 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies (IMMT 2019), held at Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani Dubai-Campus, UAE. Delegates from various countries like India, Hong Kong, South Africa, Poland, Saudi Arabia, USA, UAE, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Algeria, Uganda and Finland participated in the conference and delivered keynote, plenary and oral talks. Prof. B. S. Murthy, Director, IIT Hyderabad; Prof. J.N. Reddy, Texas A&M University, USA; Prof. I. Samajdar, IIT Bombay and Prof. Samit Roy, University of Alabama gave away Plenary talks. Prof. P. M. Padole, Director, VNIT Nagpur and Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras were the keynote speakers. During the conference, Dr. Pankaj Biswas got an opportunity to interact with leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars from various institutes across the globe and exchanged and shared his experiences and research output with them in the field of Materials Engineering. Dr. Biswas expressed his gratitude to the Vice Chancellor (SMVDU), Prof. R. K. Sinha, for his guidance and motivation. He also accorded sincere thanks to SMVDU for providing him the financial support through PDA for carrying out his presentation at international level.

Ms Neha Sharma, Research Student, School of Physics (SoP), Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra (J&K) has been declared qualified for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy(Ph.D.) in Physics. She has carried out her research on the topic, titled “Spectroscopic Investigations on some Healthy and Diseased Plant Samples”, under the supervision of Dr Vivek Kumar Singh and Dr Yugal Khajuria, Faculty, SoP, SMVDU.She has published five SCIE and one SCOPUS indexed research publications in international journals of her field of study. She thanks DST Govt. of India for INSPIRE Fellowship to conduct her research.

SMVDU Katra, December 2019. Dr. Pankaj Biswas, Faculty, School of Physics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU) presented a research paper entitled “The structural and spectral study of LiSrVO4:Tb3+ phosphor for UV-shifted imaging devices” in the 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies (IMMT 2019) which was held at Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani Dubai-Campus, UAE. Academia, industry, and management agencies across the globe particularly from India, Hong Kong, South Africa, Poland, Saudi Arabia, USA, UAE, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Algeria, Uganda and Finland participated in the conference and gave their keynote, plenary and oral talks. Prof. B.S. Murthy, Director, IIT Hyderabad; Prof. J.N. Reddy, Texas A&M University, USA; Prof. I. Samajdar, IIT Bombay and Prof. Samit Roy, University of Alabama gave away Plenary talks. Prof. P.M. Padole, Director, VNIT Nagpur and Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras was among the keynote speakers. During the conference, Dr. Pankaj Biswas, got an opportunity to interact with leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars from various institutes across the globe and exchanged and shared his experiences and research results with them in the field of Materials Engineering. Dr. Pankaj Biswas expressed his gratitude to the Vice Chancellor (SMVDU), Prof. R.K. Sinha, for his guidance and motivation. He also accorded sincere thanks to SMVDU for providing him the financial support through PDA for carrying out his presentation at international level.

Ms. Rubby Mahajan has been declared qualified for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Physics by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University. She has worked on the topic, “Synthesis and Spectral Studies of Rare Earth Doped Alkali/ Alkaline Metal Phosphates”, under the supervision of Dr. Ram Prakash, Faculty, School of Physics, SMVDU, Katra (J&K) and Dr. Vinay Kumar, Faculty, Dept. of Physics and Astronomical Sciences, Central University Jammu Rahya-Suchani Samba (J&K). She has published 05 SCIE and 03 SCOPUS indexed research papers in international journals of good repute.

Dr. Kamni, Assistant Professor, School of Physics, SMVDU attended and successfully completed One Day Short Course on “Recent developments in non-local material and structural models” on 19th November, 2019 at BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, Dubai. Course lecturer was Prof. J N Reddy from Texas University, College Station, Texas. The main aim of the course was to discuss the theory and problems where classical continuum mechanics based tools break down because the materials and structural length scales are of the same order.

Dr. Kamni, also attended and presented a paper on Synthesis, Structural and Spectral studies of Mn2+ doped KSrVO4 in 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies (IMMT 2019) November 20-22, 2019, Dubai, UAE. The conference was organized by Department of Mechanical engineering, BITS Pilani, Dubai campus. The course and conference event was attended by various scientists and industry experts working in the field of materials science. Dr. Kamni got an opportunity to interact with various material scientists and experts from various countries during the event. Dr. Kamni thanked university authorities and expressed her gratitude to Dr. R. K. Sinha, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, SMVDU for encouragement to attend the conference and present research work.

Dr. Vivek Kumar Singh, Faculty, School of Physics, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), Katra, delivered an invited talk on “LIBS analysis of rice grains infected by false smut disease (RFS)” in 4th Asian Symposium on Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (ASLIBS), held at Qingdao, China during 16-20 October, 2021. Dr. Singh talked about the RFS disease in rice crops of different regions of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. He talked about the impact of this series disease on the growth and quality of the rice crops.

Further, Dr. Singh highlighted the use and application of laser based technique, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to investigate the elemental and molecular changes occurred in the rice grains and their association with the RFS disease. Dr. Singh’s talk was followed up by a Q&P session, in which the attendees clarified their doubts. Prof. Ronger Zheng, Chair of the Symposium, thanked Dr. Singh for his talk. Prof. Jin Yu, Session Chair and Editor of the Journal Applied Physics B: Laser and Optics, expressed that the session would motivate researchers working in the field of laser technology (LIBS).

SMVDU Katra: Dr. Vivek Kumar Singh has rejoined SMVDUniversity after completing his one year fellowship (UGC-Raman Post-Doctoral Fellowship) in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) operated by The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Dr. Singh is doing his research on the “Use and Advancement of Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) in Chemical Analysis and Chemical Imaging Applications” at the state-of-the-art ultrafast laser facilities at LBNL. Dr. Singh extensively studied the physics of the laser induced lithium and hydrogen plasma and their isotopes. During his time at LBNL, Dr. Singh performed at a high level and his research efforts elucidated aspects of chemical imaging with LIBS that had not been studied in the past, thereby breaking new ground in the field. Dr. Singh also visited some reputed Institutions and Universities like Institute for Clean Energy Technology, Mississippi State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi College (A Christian University), and The Institute of Optics, University of Rochesterfor for future research collaborations. Prof. Sanjeev Jain, Vice Chancellor of SMVD University congratulated Dr. Vivek Kumar Singh on his successful completion of the fellowship. Prof. Jain briefly discussed about the research outputs and expressed his views to continue his research work.

Dr. Ram Prakash, Senior Faculty, School of Physics, Shri Mata vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), presented a research paper, titled “Structural and Luminescent properties of Dy3+ Activated Lithium Zinc borate” in the 3rd International conference (04-06 March 2020) on Material Science (ICMS-2020) at Tripura University, Tripura. Delegates from India and abroad, like USA, Japan, Germany, Chile, Slovakia, Indonesia, Poland, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, etc. participated in the conference.

Dr. Prakash got an opportunity to interact with leading researchers & academicians from various institutions and exchange his research output with them in the field of materials science. The faculty expressed his gratitude to Honourable Vice-Chancellor (SMVDU) Prof. R. K. Sinha for his support and encouragement. He is also thankful to the SMVDU for providing financial support through PDA.

Dr. Vivek K. Singh, Assistant Professor, School of Physics, SMVD University, J&K attended the Pittsburgh Conference & Exposition on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (PITTCON - 2020) held in Chicago, IL, USA during 1-5 March, 2020. In the conference, Dr. Singh delivered a lecture related to my research work entitled “Detection and Quantification of Trace Minerals in Medicinal Plants using LIBS and ICP-OES Techniques”. During this session, scientists and researchers showed their interest in the research work done by Dr. Singh and also appreciated. They also gave some suggestions for future developments in the field and asked some questions related to my presentation. Dr. Singh also presented (poster) my work entitled “Minerals Analysis and Classification of Edible Salts using LIBS Coupled with Multivariate Analysis Methods ”. The conference was attended by more than 3000 scientists, professors, researchers, academicians from more than 90 countries including Japan, France, USA, UK, Germany, Italy, India etc. Dr. Singh interacted with the scientist working in the field of analytical chemistry and spectroscopy for future developments in the field of spectroscopy. Some of the scientists were gave their positive consent to collaborate in near future research with me. Some ideas were also come up for research work in the field of plant science and biomaterials. Overall, the conference was beneficial for the undersigned and was a good exposure in the field of Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy. Dr. Singh is much thankful to the University authorities for providing the financial support under Profession Development Assistance (PDA) programme by SMVDU.

Dr. Vinay Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, and Coordinator, Nanotechnology Cell, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University presented his recent research on nanophosphor converted light emitting diodes (n-pcLED) titled “Potential of Sm3+ doped LiSrVO4 nanophosphor to fill amber gap in LEDs” in the 7th South African Conference on Photonic Materials (SACPM2017) held at Amanzi Private Reserve during 27th-31st March, 2017 in South Africa.The conference was organized by Department of Physics of three leading Universities of South Africa namely, University of the Free State, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and University of Pretoria under the ages of South Africa Institute of Physics (SAIOP). The conference was attended by over 100 scientists, researchers and scholars from several countries. It consisted of invited talks delivered by delegates from different part of world including Sweden, Germany, France, Brazil, Belgium, Luxembourg and India, etc. The different sessions also included over 40 contributed talks and and 2 poster sessions (which includes 80 posters) besides several other attendees and industry participation.

In his talk, Dr. Kumar highlighted the potential of nanophosphor in light-emitting diode (LED) radiation from UV to IR region and even to generate white light. He explained the concept of down conversion of, e.g., blue LED emission, which offers news possibility to provide efficient generation of monochromatic, high-color-purity light, especially in wavelength ranges (540-600 nm) in which direct radiation from non-converted LEDs is relatively inefficient, i.e., in the “yellow gap”. In his presentation he explained that a blue-emitting LED is ‘fully’ converted to amber emission with a peak wavelength of 595 nm and a color purity of >96%.

Dr. Kumar is also highly grateful to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University for funding his visit to South Africa under PDA grant.