Chandigarh Variable Energy Cyclotron 

Department of Physics

Panjab University,

Chandigarh-160014, India

Brief History of Chandigarh Cyclotron:

Research Group:

Dr. K. P. Singh                Professor singhkp@pu.ac.in

Dr. Ashok Kumar            Assistant Professor ashok@pu.ac.in

Dr. B. R. Behera             Assistant Professor bivash@pu.ac.in

Dr. Gulzar Singh (Retired Professor) gulzar@pu.ac.in

Ms. Mumtaz Oswal Sr. Research Fellow

Mr. Virinderjit Singh Research Fellow

Ms. Rajbir Kaur Research Fellow

Research Activities:

The faculty members are working on the following research activities at Chandigarh Cyclotron laboratory

as well as at National & International Accelerator centers.

1.    Elemental Analysis by PIXE and PIGE techniques

2. Coulomb Excitation

3.    Lifetime Measurements using RDM & DSAM techniques

4.    Systematics of Mechanism of Heavy Ion induced reactions

5.    Nuclear Reaction Dynamics

6. Proton Induced Modifications in Materials

Elemental Analysis by PIXE) and PIGE

The test experiments on PIXE have been conducted in the cyclotron laboratory using low-energy proton beam. A separate beam line is being constructed for this kind of experiments. The proton beam energy available in this laboratory is very much suitable for elemental analysis of samples using PIXE technique.

Coulomb Excitation:

The activity of the Coulomb Excitation with proton as projectile is being used for this purpose.  Several nuclei e.g., ⁴⁵Sc, ⁶¹Ni, ^63,65Cu, ^66,68Zn, ^79,81Br, ⁹³Nb, ¹⁰³Rh, ¹⁰⁵Pd, ^{107, 109}Ag, ^110,111,113Cd, ^121,123Sb, ¹²⁷I, ¹³³Cs, ¹⁵⁷Gd, ¹⁶⁵Ho, ¹⁹⁷Au have been studied using this  accelerator.  For Heavy Ion Coulomb Excitation experiments one need a charged particle detector (position sensitive) for particle-gamma coincidence experiments. The special type of charged particle detector for Coulomb excitation experiments is planned to be fabricated to work at NSC.

Lifetime Measurements using DSAM and RDM techniques

The study of In-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy has provided several useful information on the spins, parities and lifetimes of the excited nuclear levels using Doppler Shift Attenuation Method (DSAM) technique in cyclotron laboratory. The nuclei  ²⁸Si, ⁵⁹Ni, ⁷¹Ge, ⁵³Mn, ⁷³As, ⁷⁵Se, ⁹³Mo, ¹⁰³Pd, ¹⁰⁵Ag, ^110mCd, ¹²¹Te,  are studied via (p,n,g) and (p,g) reactions and the lifetimes of the excited levels have been  measured  using DSAM technique. A large number of new results on energy levels and lifetimes have been reported for the above said nuclei.  In this technique we need high precision in the measurement of shift in the peak positions, so in future this work will be continued with better facility using multi parameter coincidences.

The recoil distance method (RDM) is a valuable tool to measure the nuclear lifetimes in the range of 1 picosecond to 1 nanosecond. This region is a good testing ground for the nuclear collective behavior at high excitation using heavy ion reactions.  A computer controlled RDM apparatus has been set up at the Nuclear Science Centre, New Delhi. It has been used for the measurements of unknown lifetimes of several excited states of the ground state band in ^122,124Xe and recently in ¹¹⁸Xe.  The lifetimes of the excited rotational band in heavier nuclei e.g. ^171,173Ta and ^183-185Au have been measured and published in International Journals. This technique will be used in future for more measurements in deformed nuclei.

Proton Induced Modifications in Materials

Ion irradiation of polymers can induce irreversible changes in their macroscopic properties. Electronic excitation, ionization, chain scission and cross-links as well as mass losses are accepted as the fundamental events that give rise to the observed macroscopic changes. A few MeV ions passing through polymer films modify their electrical, optical, thermal and mechanical properties and these changes are related to changes in chemical structure of the polymers.  3 MeV proton beam has been used to study the effect of irradiation on polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Kapton, Ethyle Vinyl acetate (EVA) blended PVC & PET have been investigated.  The focus on more complex polymers such as PMMA, PVC, PES, Blended PVC+EVA and PMMA+PEO at different compositions have been planned for future work.

Publications:

2010

Mumtaz Oswal, Harneet Bedi, M. Hajivaliei, Ashok Kumar and K. P. Singh:

Trace elements of soil samples from mining area;

Nuclear Instruments & Methods B268, 2138(2010).

Poonam Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Kanchan, Meenakshi Pant, K. P. Singh:

Conductivity studies in proton irradiated AgI-Ag2O-V2O5-TeO2 Super-Ionic Glass System;

Materials Sciences & Applications 2010, 1, 59-65.

2009

Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N. L. Singh, P. K. Kulriya, K. P. Singh and D. K. Avasthi:

Structural and chemical modification of polymer composite by proton irradiation;

Surface and Coating Technology, Vol. 203, 2595 (2009).

Anjum Qureshi, Sejal Shah, Dolly Singh, N. L. Singh and K. P. Singh:

AC Electrical Properties of proton irradiated EVA films;

Indian J. Physics 83(3), 1117-1122(2009).

Mumtaz Oswal, Sunil Kumar, Veena Sharma, Rajbir Kaur, A. Srivastava, B. R. Behera,

A. Kumar, D. Mehta, M. L. Garg and K. P. Singh:

Environmental applications of XRF technique;

19^th Int. Conf. on Ion Beam Analysis (IBA2009), Sept. 7-11, 2009), Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.

Mumtaz Oswal, Harneet Bedi, M. Hajivaliei, Ashok Kumar and K. P. Singh:

Trace elements of soil samples from mining area;

19^th Int. Conf. on Ion Beam Analysis (IBA2009), Sept. 7-11, 2009), Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.

Rohit sandal, B. R. behera, Varinderjit Singh, A. Kumar, G. Singh, K. P. Singh, S. Mandal, S. Kalkal,

D. Siwal, M. Saxena, S. Goyal, E. Prasad, P. Sugathan, A. Jhingan, K. S. Golda, R. P. Singh, R. K. Bhowmik,

M.B. Chatterjee, K. Mahata, S. Santra, A. Saxena:

Fission fragment mass distributions at high excitation energies for ^16,18O + ^194,198Pt systems:

International Symposium on Nuclear Physics, Dec-8-12, 2009, BARC, Mumbai).

Gulzar Singh, H. S. Hans, Ashok Kumar, Gurpreet Singh, B. R. behera, Rohit Sandal, Varinderjit Singh, K. P. Singh:

Excitation Energy Systematics of the Effects Single particle Level Densities in Pre-equilibrium Processes in (n,p) Reactions

at 14.8 MeV Incident Energies;

International Symposium on Nuclear Physics, Dec-8-12, 2009, BARC, Mumbai.

Varinderjit Singh, B.R Behera, Rohit Sandal, A Kumar, G Singh, K.P Singh, S Mandal, D Siwal,

P Sugathan, A Jhingan, K.S Golda, M.B Chatterjee, R.K Bhowmik, K Mahata, A Saxena, S Kailas:

Neutron multiplicity measurements for ¹⁹F + ^194,198Pt systems at high excitation energy to understand the fission dynamics;

International Symposium on Nuclear Physics, Dec-8-12, 2009, BARC, Mumbai.

2008

N. L. Singh, Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, K. P. Singh, V. Shrinet, P. K. Kulriya and A. Tripathi;

Radiation induced modification of Organometallic compound dispersed polymer composites:

Radiation Effects & Defects in Solids, Vol 163, 169-177 (2008).

Sejal Shah, N. L. Singh, Anjum Qureshi, Dolly Singh, K. P. Singh, V. Shrinet, and A. Tripathi:

Dielectric and structural modification of proton beam irradiated polymer composite;

Nuclear Instruments & Methods, B266, 1768-1774 (2008).

Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N. L. Singh, K. P. Singh, V. Ganesan:

Modification of polymer composite by proton beam;

Soft Materials, 6(2), 75-84 (2008).

Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N. L. Singh, K. P. Singh and D. K. Avasthi:

Dielectric response of proton irradiated polymer composite films;

Radiation Measurements Vol. 43, S603-S606 (2008)

Sejal Shah, Dolly Singh, Anjum Qureshi, N. L. Singh, K.P. Singh, V. Shrinet:

Dielectric properties and surface morphology of proton irradiated ferric oxalate dispersed PVC films;

Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Physics Vol. 46, 439-442 (2008).

Rohit Sandal, B. R. Behera, R K Bhowmik, M B Chatterjee, R K Choudhury, Sunil Kalkal, S Gautam,

K S Golda, A Jhingan, S. Kailas, A. Kumar, S K Mandal, M Oswal, E Prasad, Ranjeet, S Ray, A Saxena,

H Singh, R P Singh, K P Singh, Gulzar Singh, Varinderjit Singh, P Shidling, P Sugathan:

Neutron multiplicity and mass distributions measurement to understand the fusion – fission dynamics for the system ¹⁶O + ¹⁹⁴Pt;

DAE Symp. Nuclear Physics, Vol. 53, p369(2008)

2007

Nilam Shah, Dolly Singh, Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N.L. Singh and K.P. Singh:

Study of microhardness and electrical properties of proton irradiated polyether sulfone;

Bulletin of Material Science, Vol 30, 477-480 (2007).

Sejal Shah, N. L. Singh, Anjum Qureshi, Dolly Singh, K. P. Singh, V. Shrinet, A. Tripathi and C. N. Murthy,

Dielectric and structural modification of proton beam irradiated polymer composite;

Proceedings. of 18^th Int. Conf. on IBA (IBA2007) p.311 (2007)

Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N L Singh, A. Tripathi, K P Singh and D K Avasthi:

Structural and Chemical modification of Polymer composite by Proton Irradiation;

15^th Int. Conf. on Surface Modification of Materials by Ion Beams (SMMIB-15),

Sept. 30- Oct. 05, 2007, Mumbai, India.

2006

K. P. Singh, Tayeb Kakavand, Mumtaz Oswal, Ashok Kumar, B. R. Behera and Gulzar Singh:

Lifetimes of Low-lying States in ⁵³Mn;

Indian Particle Accelerator Conference (InPAC-2006), BARC, Mumbai, Nov. 1 – 4, 2006.

Ashok Kumar, Rajbir Kaur, Kamaljit Gill, Mumtaz Oswal, B. R. Behera, G. Singh and K. P. Singh:

Development of PIGE setup for light trace elements analysis at Cyclotron laboratory, Chandigarh;

Indian Particle Accelerator Conference (InPAC-2006)”, BARC, Mumbai, Nov. 1 – 4, 2006.

Sejal Shah, Anjum Qureshi, Dolly Singh, N. L. Sýngh, K. P. Singh, P. Kularia and A. Tripathi:

Effect of ion beam metal nanoparticle doped polymeric films;

DAE Symposium on Solid State Physics 51, 311 (2006), Bhopal, India.

Nilam Shah, Anjum Qureshi, N. L. Singh and K. P. Singh:

Study of microhardness and electrical properties of proton irradiated polyether sulfone;

Int. Symp. on Ionising Radiations and Polymers, Sept. 23 – 26, 2006, Ankara, Turkey.

K. P. Singh, Mumtaz Oswal, Ashok Kumar , B. R. Behera and Gulzar Singh:

Study of Low-lying levels in ⁶⁹Ga;

BRNS-DAE Nuclear Physics Symp., Dec. 11-15, 2006, MS Univ. of Baroda, Vadodara.

2005

Kuljeet Singh, Z. Naik, R. Kumar, J. Goswamy, D. Mehta, N. Singh, P. R. Praahraj, E. S. Paul.

K. P. Singh, R. P. Singh. S. Murlithar, N. Madhavan, J. J. Das, S. Nath, A. Jhingan, P.Sugathan, R. K. Bhowmik:

Rotational Structures in ¹²³Cs;

Eur. Phys. J. A25, 345 (2005).

N. L. Singh, Nilam Shah and K. P. Singh:

Proton Induced Modifications in Macrofol-DE;

Bull. of Material Science, Vol. 28, 599 (2005).

Gurinder Singh, J. Sharma, A. Thakur, K. P. Singh, G.S.S. Saini, N. Goyal and S K Tripathi:

Proton Induced Changes on the Optical Parameters of a- (Ge20Se80)_0.96 Ag_0.04 Thin Film;

Journal of Materials Science (Letters), Published online Nov. 01, (2005).

N L Singh, N. Shah, M S Gadkari, S Mukherjee and K P Singh:

Electrical and Thermal Properties of proton irradiated polymeric blends;

Radiation Measurements 40, 741 (2005).

S K Tripathi, A.Thakur, G. Singh, J. Sharma, V. Sharma, K. P. Singh, G.S.S. Saini & N. Goyal:

Irradiation effects on the Optical Properties of a Ge-Se-Ag Thin Films;

Journal of Optoelectronics & Advanced Materials, Vol.7, 2095 (2005).

N. L. Singh, Anjum Qureshi, Nilam Shah, Sejal Shah, K. P. Singh:

AC Electrical properties of proton irradiated EVA films;

DAE-BRNS Symposium on Solid State Physics, Dec., 2005, India

Nilam Shah, N. L. Singh, Anjum Qureshi, K. P. Singh and D.G.Rathod:

Electrical and thermal properties of proton irradiated polypropylene;

Indo-German Conf., Feb. 20-24, 2005, NSC, New Delhi

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