Dr. Manis Chaudhuri receives Parvez Guzdar award for Young Scientists
Complex plasmas as tools: by controlling the dynamics of dust particles in the background plasma (ionized gas) environment, physicists can explore the fundamental properties of solid (plasma crystal), liquid and gaseous states as well as relevant phase transitions.
Complex plasmas are very peculiar: on the one hand, a plasma or ionised gas is the most disordered state of matter, on the other hand, under certain conditions complex plasmas can form highly regular structures such as crystals. This is why they are of special interest to physicists such as Manis Chauduri. While working with hot plasmas for his Post-MSc Diploma at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Chaudhuri started to work with cold plasma, when he came to MPE for his doctoral work in 2005. His research interests now span a wide area ranging from complex plasma to condensed matter physics and non-linear plasma dynamics.
Dr. Manis Chaudhuri was chosen for the Parvez Guzdar Award 2012 for his “significant contributions in the field of Complex (Dusty) plasma, including innovative application of imaging techniques to gain new insights into the properties and dynamics of dimers in binary mixtures”. The award was supported by the Parvez Guzdar Foundation and the Institute for Plasma Research in Gandhinagar. And Chaudhuri is the first recipient of the award, which is bestowed in memory of Parvez Guzdar. Guzdar’s research contributions spanned a broad spectrum of topics in plasma physics ranging from fundamental studies of plasma instabilities to novel applications and interpretation of experimental phenomena in magnetic fusion devices, laser fusion, space and astrophysical plasmas and various nonlinear systems. It is given to scientists of Indian origin who are below the age of 35. The selection is done by a review panel based on his or her research contributions to plasma physics.
The official award ceremony took place during the Plasma Science Society of India (PSSI) symposium at Pondicherry University on 10-13 December 2012. Together with the award certificate, Dr. Chaudhuri received a cash prize of Rs.50,000 (~700€) and delivered an invited talk about his research, “Exploring Complex (Dusty) plasmas with Defocus Imaging Technique”.