Ashoka University’s Faculty Susmita Saha awarded the prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship 

Susmita Saha, a promising and early career Physics Researcher at Ashoka University has been awarded the prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship. During her tenure at Ashoka University, she aims to demonstrate the applications of artificial spin ice systems in magnonic devices that can process and store information. 

Elaborating on her research and her association with Ashoka University, she said: “My current research is to address the understanding and controlling spin-dynamics of ferromagnetic  nanostructures by varying various physical and geometrical parameters such as shape, material, lattice  constant etc. This introduces us with a new research field called magnonics where spin waves are used  to carry and process information.” 

“This research field is very active, competitive, and dynamic with  potential results of large importance for applications in spintronics. At Ashoka University, I am planning  to pursue the same research field but this time I aim to demonstrate the applications of artificial spin  ice systems in magnonics. The concept of geometric frustration observed in water ice is introduced in artificial spin ice systems. Artificial spin ice is an interesting research field full of rich physics. I want to use these artificial spin ices to demonstrate magnonic devices.” 

The Ramanujan Fellowship has been instituted by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), under the Department of Science and Technology. 

The fellowship is meant for bright Indian scientists and engineers from outside India to take up scientific research positions in India. The fellowship is very selective and provides an opportunity to the scientists of Indian origin to return to their roots and contribute to Indian science and technology. 

Ramanujan fellowship is very prestigious and only those who have a proven/outstanding track-record as evident from their research publications and recognitions are awarded this fellowship.

“We are delighted to see Susmita Saha’s research getting recognition. Indeed, her research proposal on artificial spin ice systems also received attention through a highly competitive Marie Curie Fellowship. We wish her success in setting up a new laboratory at Ashoka,” said Somendra M. Bhattacharjee, Head of the Department, and Professor of Physics at Ashoka University.

Prior to joining Ashoka, Susmita Saha was working as a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala Universitet on the element specific ultrafast magnetization dynamics of magnetic materials by using the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect in the extreme ultraviolet regime (XUV).