Department of
Physics

Sunil Nair obtained his PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from the Inter University Consortium for DAE facilities, Indore. Following a brief postdoctoral stint at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, as a Humboldt Fellow. He was a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Oxford before joining IISER Pune in 2011.

Research

Experimental condensed matter physics

Electrons in solid state matter interact with each other in myriad ways. Notable consequences of these enigmatic electron-electron interactions include diverse electronic ground states like magnetism, superconductivity, and ferroelectricity. Dr. Sunil Nair's group works on the synthesis of novel multifunctional materials, and in discerning the underlying physical processes which drive these novel electronic states. Of particular interest are systems in which properties can be tuned as a function of external control parameters like temperature, pressure, and magnetic or electric fields.

The group is involved in the synthesis of novel materials, their characterization using a host of laboratory and large scale facilities, as well as the development of specialized instruments to enable such investigations. The broad areas of interest include geometrically frustrated magnets, multiferroics and magnetoelectrics, magnetotransport in unconventional superconductors, materials with large spin-orbit coupling, oxide thermoelectrics and spin caloritronics.

Selected Publications

Charu Garg, Jitender Kumar, Sunil Nair (2018). Absence of the a multiglass state in some transition metal doped quantum paralectrics. Physical Review Materials 2: 094409-094419.

Arup Ghosh, Avirup De, Sunil Nair (2018). Large anomalous Nernst effect across the magneto-structural transition in bulk Ni-Co-Mn-Sn full Heusler alloy. Applied Physics Letters 113: 262405-262409.

Soumendra Nath Panja, Luminita Harnagea, Jitender Kumar, P.K.Mukharjee, R.Nath, A.K.Nigam, Sunil Nair (2018). Coupled magnetic and ferroelectric states in the distorted honeycomb system Fe₄Ta₂O₉. Physical Review B 98: 024410-024417.

Jitender Kumar, Soumendra Nath Panja, Deepak John, Arpan Bhattacharyya, A. K. Nigam, Sunil Nair (2017). A reentrant superspin glass state and magnetization steps in the oxyborate Co₂AlBO₅. Physical Review B 95: 144409-144414.

Jitender Kumar, Soumendra Nath Panja, Shanu Dengre, Sunil Nair (2017). Identification of a Griffiths singularity in a geometrically frustrated antiferromagnet. Physical Review B 95: 054401-054405.