Pulickel Madhavapanicker Ajayan, known as P. M. Ajayan, is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering at
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
. He is the founding chair of Rice University's Materials Science and NanoEngineering department and also holds joint appointments with the Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Prior to joining Rice, he was the Henry Burlage Professor of Material Sciences and Engineering and the director of the NYSTAR interconnect focus center at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
until 2007.
Known for his pioneering work of designing and carrying out the first experiments to make nanotubes intentionally.
Early life and education
Ajayan was born on 15 July 1962 at Kodungallur, a coastal town in
Thrissur District, in the Indian state of
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
, to Pulickal Madhava Panickar, a telephone mechanic, and Radha, a teacher at the local school.
He studied in a government school in
Kodungallur
Kodungallur (; also Cranganore, Portuguese: Cranganor; formerly known as Mahodayapuram, Shingly, Vanchi, Muchiri, Muyirikkode, and Muziris) is a historically significant town situated on the banks of river Periyar on the Malabar Coast in Thr ...
where the medium of instruction was
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
until 6th standard,
after which he moved to
Loyola School, Thiruvananthapuram
, motto_translation = ''Greater''; ''More''
, type = Private primary and secondary school
, gender = Boys
, established =
, founder = Fr. Joseph Edamaram, SJ
, rel ...
, a high school he has credited for making a strong impact on him, and for making him "realize that learning is the most exciting thing one can ever befriend". He graduated from Loyola in 1977.
In 1985, Ajayan graduated at the top of his class with a
BTech
A Bachelor of Technology (Latin ''Baccalaureus Technologiae'', commonly abbreviated as B.Tech. or BTech; with honours as B.Tech. (Hons.)) is an undergraduate academic degree conferred after the completion of a three to five-year program of studi ...
degree in Metallurgical Engineering from
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (IIT BHU) is a public technical university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering College, it became the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu Univers ...
.
In 1989, he earned a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, Evanston, Illinois.
Afterwards he spent three years as a post-doc at
NEC
is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It prov ...
corporation, Japan, two years as a researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides,
Orsay
Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris.
A fortifie ...
, France, and one year at the
Max Planck Institute for Metals Research
Founded on 18 March 2011, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) is one of the 86 research institutes of the Max Planck Society. With locations in Stuttgart and Tübingen, it combines interdisciplinary research in the growing f ...
,
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, Germany.
Research
Ajayan is a pioneer in the field of
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
. His PhD work (1989) involved the characterisation of gold nanoparticles on oxide substrates and their phase instabilities. He was involved in the early development of carbon nanotubes. From 1991 onwards, at the NEC Fundamental Research Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan, he worked with
Sumio Iijima
is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and ...
and
Thomas Ebbesen
Thomas Ebbesen (born 30 January 1954 in Oslo) is a Franco-Norwegian physical chemist and professor at the University of Strasbourg in France, known for his pioneering work in nanoscience. He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for transforma ...
and published some of the early works in carbon nanotubes. During the past two decades he has published more than 400 papers on various aspects of carbon nanostructures, mostly on nanotubes and recently on graphene and other layered materials such as boron nitride. Ajayan's research interests are broad, focusing on nanomaterials development for a variety of applications such as energy storage, composites, electronics and sensors. His publications have earned more than 68,000 citations on
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...
and a h-index of 120 until September 2015.
He has to his credit, two Guinness World Records for creating the smallest brush and the darkest material. Ajayan's team created the darkest known material, a carpet of carbon nanotubes, that reflects only 0.045% of light. In August 2007, he was in the news for creating an energy storage device on a piece of paper, called the paper battery. In a brief interview with ''
Discover Magazine
''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It has been owned by Kalmbach Publishing since 2010.
History
Founding
''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' mag ...
'', Ajayan stated he believes the paper battery will have many important future applications in industry and medicine. In 2012, Ajayan's group announced a paint-on battery design, which eventually can eliminate restrictions on the surfaces used for energy storage More recently, Ajayan's group developed a green battery consisting of environmentally friendly lithium-ion cathode, which can lead to the development of completely bio-friendly batteries Ajayan's research group is also focusing on the development of various materials for environmental applications and, last year the group developed a hybrid material capable of effectively removing contaminants from water by coating the sand with carbon. In 2012, Ajayan's group developed a macro-scale carbon nanotube sponge, in which nanotubes are covalently connected each other, and demonstrated its selective absorption of oil from oil-water mixture.
Ajayan's present research interests include nanotechnology enabled energy storage devices (battery, supercapacitor and hybrid devices), nanocomposites, layered materials, 3D nanostructured materials, and smart material systems. Apart from leading a research group (~40 people, including post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students, and international visiting scholars), he focuses on teaching and lecturing around the world on nanotechnology.
He regularly serves on the advisory board of several materials and nanotechnology journals, nanotechnology startups and international conferences. In his role as an academic at Rice and RPI, Ajayan has been a major promoter of nanotechnology, teaching various interdisciplinary courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, emphasising the changes occurring in the science and engineering curriculum. Constantly travelling to expand the field, Ajayan's group has a large number of collaborators worldwide and he spends a good amount of time abroad and inside the United States. He has visiting Professor positions at various prestigious Universities around the world, such as
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
(Beijing, China),
Indian Institute of Science
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...
(
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
, India) and
Shinshu University
, abbreviated to , is a Japanese national university located in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. As the only university in Japan bearing the name of a former Japanese province, it bears the name "Shinshu" (alternative name for Shinano Provin ...
(Japan). He was a visiting professor at ISIS,
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
, France for several months during 2003 and a Helmoltz-Humboldt prize winner and frequent visitor at the Institute of Nanotechnology in
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association.
KIT was created in 2009 w ...
,
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
, Germany during 2007–2010. He was listed among the world's most cited materials scientists by
Elsevier Scopus in 2016.
Personal life
Ajayan is married to Poornima and has two daughters, Anakha and Ahi.
Honors
* Swadeshi Shastra Puraskaram, Swadeshi Science Movement, Kerala (2012)
* Distinguished Alumnus Award -
IIT BHU
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (IIT BHU) is a Public university, public technical university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering college, Engineering College, it became the Institu ...
(2012)
* DST-IISC Centennial Chair Professorship, Bangalore India (2011)
* Elected Honorary Member of Materials Research Society of India (2008)
* Helmoltz-Humboldt Senior Award (2008)
* Scientific American 50 – Research Leader in 2006
* Materials Research Society (MRS) medal, 2006
* Holder of two Guinness Book of World Records (2007, 2005)
* Helmoltz-Humboldt Prize (2007)
* Selected Nano50TM Innovator by Nanotech Briefs (2007)
* Elected Fellow of AAAS (2007)
* Distinguished Alumnus Award, Department of Metallurgy,
IIT BHU
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (IIT BHU) is a Public university, public technical university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering college, Engineering College, it became the Institu ...
(2005)
* Kerala Center Award (2005)
* RPI Senior Research Award (2003)
* National Science Foundation CAREER early development award (1998)
* Microscopic Society of America Burton award (1997)
* Electron Microscopy Society of America Presidential Student Award (1989)
* Hadfield Medal for Outstanding Metallurgist (1985)
* Gold Medal -
IIT BHU
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (IIT BHU) is a Public university, public technical university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering college, Engineering College, it became the Institu ...
(1985)
References
External links
Rice University – Faculty Page of Pulickel M. AjayanProf. Ajayan speaks on NPR about the extremely small brushes he and his team madeProf. Ajayan speaks at Oceanit about nanotechnology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ajayan, Pulickel M
Loyola School, Thiruvananthapuram alumni
Living people
Indian nanotechnologists
Banaras Hindu University alumni
Scientists from Kerala
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty
Rice University faculty
People from Thrissur district
1962 births
American people of Indian descent
Indian materials scientists
20th-century Indian engineers
Carbon scientists
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi alumni