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The Raman Research Institute (RRI) is an institute for scientific research located in
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
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It was founded by
Nobel laureate
C. V. Raman
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (; 7 November 188821 November 1970) was an Indian physicist known for his work in the field of light scattering.
Using a spectrograph that he developed, he and his student K. S. Krishnan discovered that when ...
in 1948. Although it began as an institute privately owned by Sir
C. V. Raman
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (; 7 November 188821 November 1970) was an Indian physicist known for his work in the field of light scattering.
Using a spectrograph that he developed, he and his student K. S. Krishnan discovered that when ...
, it is now funded by the government of India.
History
Before Raman considered founding a research institute, he had approached the former Maharaja of
Mysore
Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...
seeking land to build office and conference premises for the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS). The Maharaja acceded to Raman's request and a plot of land in the
Malleshwaram
Malleshwara (also referred as Malleshwaram) is a northwest neighborhood and one of the zones of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike in Bengaluru, India. It was planned in 1889 after the great plague of 1898, developed as a suburb in 1892 and h ...
suburb of Bangalore was allotted to the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934. However, the Academy (then headed by Raman) made no use of the land for seven years. According to the terms of the deal with the Maharaja, the land could be to another use by the government of Mysore if it still remained unused at the end of 1941.
Raman, as President of the IAS, held an extraordinary meeting of the academy in 1941, and proposed that a research institute (to be named after himself) be built on the land. The proposal was approved and a foundational stone was laid on the ground, signifying that the land was now in use. However, it was not until 1948 that the institute was opened. Raman had planned the institute much before he retired as the head of the Physics Department of the Indian Institute of Science. His idea had been to move directly to his newly founded institute when he retired from IISc. This happened in 1948 - Thus, the Raman Research Institute began under the umbrella of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and both under Raman's leadership.
Raman had an apparent hatred for writing project reports or having to give periodic status reports to project funders. For this reason, Raman refused to accept any funds from the Indian government and other sources. "He was of the firm belief that science could not be done that way,” said Prof. N. V Madhusudana, Dean of Research at the RRI and a leading liquid crystal scientist. As a Nobel Laureate, Raman enjoyed significant respect in Indian public life and was able to raise funds for the institute through private donations and fund-raisers without state involvement. "Till Raman's death, this was his private research institute. He had a very small group of research students working with him and very few administrative staff”, said Prof. Madhusudana.
Raman was clear that after his death, the Presidency of the IAS and Director of the RRI could pass to different individuals. Equally the Raman Research Institute should not remain subordinate to the Indian Academy of Sciences but enjoy autonomy and a distinct statutory identity of its own. Just before his death, Raman established a framework for the running of the institute, separating it completely from the Indian Academy of Sciences and giving it statutory autonomy. The Institute adopted the change immediately after Raman's death in 1971 with the consent of the government, and stepped into a new era as a statutory body, functioning since 1972 on annual grants received from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.
Achievements
Despite budgetary and infrastructural constraints, scientists working under Raman carried out some ground-breaking work. For instance, S. Pancharatnam, who joined the institute in 1954, discovered a fundamental quantum optic effect. This work, according to Jayaraman, was "the most outstanding original piece of research that came out of RRI at that time."
This discovery proved for the first time that geometric phase exists in optics. But this work was not known to the world until similar discovery was made by scientists elsewhere about two decades later. Subsequently, RRI could convincingly prove that Pancharatnam discovered this long ago and today "this phase is called Pancharatnam Phase world over," said Madhusudana. Pancharatnam unfortunately did not live long enough to see this and his career was cut short when he died in 1969 while in Oxford.
Collections
The institute also houses Raman's prized collection of gems, crystals, minerals, and rock specimens from all over the world. Raman, who was fascinated by the colours of the biological kingdom, also had a wide collection of stuffed birds, beetles, and butterflies in the museum. Raman is reputed to have taken much pride in showing his precious collections to visitors to the institute. During Raman's time, many celebrated scientists from other countries paid a visit to the institute. Among them were: J. D. Bernal, E. C. Bullard, P. M. S. Blackett, C. G. Darwin, P. A. M. Dirac, G. Gamow, J. B. S. Haldane, Linus Pauling, C. F. Powell, L. Rosenfeld, G. Wentzel and Norbert Wiener.
Research Areas
The main areas of research are:
*
Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
and
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...
*
Theoretical Physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
*
Light and Matter Physics
*
Soft Condensed Matter Physics
Soft Condensed Matter
Liquid crystals
One of the current research priority areas of the institute is liquid crystals. This has been an active area of research at the Raman Research Institute for nearly three decades. The research programme covers a broad spectrum of activities ranging from the synthesis of new liquid crystalline materials to display electronics. Discoveries of the columnar phase formed by disc-like molecules and pressure induced mesomorphism are two of the early significant contributions made by the liquid crystal group. "Out of 36 liquid crystal materials discovered in the world, three were from this institute," Prof. Madhusudana has stated. Among them were two new liquid crystalline phases, namely the undulating twist grain boundary C phase and the biaxial smectic A phase.
Techniques developed for driving passive matrix liquid crystal displays at the institute are now being widely used. In recent years the liquid crystal group has been working on electrochemical aspects of surface science and on other soft materials like surfactants, polymers, and on the physics of biological systems
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy and astrophysics have been another strong area of research for the RRI. According to Prof. Madhusudana, this department has the highest number of faculty and research students of the institute. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, it has been carrying out observational programmes in radio astronomy, covering almost the entire radio spectrum. Besides having a millimetrewave telescope of 10.4 metre diameter on the campus, the RRI has set up the
Gauribidanur Radio Observatory
The Gauribidanur Radio Observatory is a radio telescope observatory located at Gauribidanur, near Bengaluru. It is operated jointly by Raman Research Institute and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. The observatory has been in operation since ...
, a decametrewave Radio telescope at Gauribidanur, about 80 kilometres from Bangalore. This has been done jointly with the
Indian Institute of Astrophysics
The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), with its headquarters in Bengaluru,is an autonomous Research Institute wholly financed by the department of Science and Technology, Government of India. IIA conducts research primarily in the areas of ...
(IIA), Bangalore. This is one of the few largest telescopes that operate at the wavelength of 10 metre and is being used by RRI scientists to study radio emission from various types of celestial objects such as the sun, Jupiter and similar radio sources in Milky Way and other galaxies.
Other radio telescopes being used by RRI scientists are the
Ooty Radio Telescope
The Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) is located in Muthorai near Ooty, in southern India. It is part of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), which is funded by the Government of India ...
, at Ooty, and
Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Pune, Junnar, near Narayangaon at khodad in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is operated by t ...
(GMRT), near Pune, both set up by the
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the D ...
(TIFR). RRI also played an active role in building the
Mauritius Radio Telescope
The Mauritius Radio Telescope (MRT) is a synthesis radio telescope in Mauritius that is used to make images of the sky at a frequency of 151.5 MHz. The MRT was primarily designed to make a survey with a point source sensitivity of 150 mJy. ...
, a low-frequency radio telescope in Mauritius jointly with the
University of Mauritius
The University of Mauritius (UoM) (french: Université de Maurice) is the national university of Mauritius. It is the oldest and largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered. The public university's main ...
and IIA.
The major astronomical investigations pursued at the Institute can be broadly classified into the following categories: (i) Neutron Stars and Pulsars; (ii) cosmology; (iii) Diffuse matter in space; and (iv) Radio Sky Surveys.
Theoretical physics
Activity in theoretical physics at the institute has focussed on relativity and gravity, quantum theory, and optics. The current activity in gravitation concentrates on two themes, gravitational radiation and quantum gravity. Gravitation is known to be the weakest of all known forces of nature, but it dominates all structure and motion on the astronomical scale because of its attractive universality, its long range and the fact that matter on the large scale is essentially neutral. The correct theory of gravitation is now believed to be
Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
General Theory of Relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric scientific theory, theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current descr ...
. One of the fundamental predictions of General Theory of Relativity is that of gravitational waves — waves of distortion of spacetime itself - propagating at a finite speed of light. This replaces the Newtonian gravitations forces which was instantaneous. Such waves are expected to be emitted when, for example, two massive inspiralling stars tend to coalesce under their mutual gravitations attraction. Accurate calculation of this gravitational radiation — its waveform — has been one of the major research programmes of the theoretical physics group at the institute. Their work is expected to be a crucial input towards its eventual detection.
Another major activity of the theoretical physics group has been in studying tje propagation of light waves in certain types of liquid crystals and minerals and their associated polarization phenomenon. The RRI has been a pioneer in this field of study, initiated by one of Raman's research students, Pancharatnam.
Light and Matter Physics
Quantum Information and Computing (QuIC) laboratory
During June 2020, QuIC was successful in developing the toolkit and ran a simulation that helps in safe
quantum key distribution
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method which implements a cryptographic protocol involving components of quantum mechanics. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be ...
between devices. In February 2021, a team of researchers under the guidance of Prof. Urbasi Sinha in collaboration with Prof. Barry Sanders from the
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
demonstrated the distribution of quantum key using free space between two buildings at a distance of 50 meters that used
quantum entanglement
Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of ...
based quantum-key distribution technique. It is part of the
Quantum Experiments using Satellite Technology
Quantum Experiment using Satellite Tecnology launched in 2017 by Raman Research Institute in February 2021 demonstrated Quantum communication for 50 m apart and on 19 March 2021 for 300 m apart inline of sight in Space Applications Centre in coo ...
(QuEST) project supported by
Indian Space Research Organization
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...
(ISRO). This work is part of the
National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
. One of the objectives is to develop secure encrypted communication that are harder to break even with ongoing advances in
computing technology
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
. Prof. Urbasi Sinha and her team at RRI have been working on
Quantum cryptography
Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution ...
since 2017.
References
External links
RRI website
{{Authority control
Research institutes established in 1948
Research institutes in Bangalore
Physics institutes
1948 establishments in India