Category: video

New episode – audio-visual podcast – An Indian Prof’s 15 lessons

I share 15 lessons that I have learnt as an Indian Professor, academic scientist, teacher and a citizen…

This is an audio-visual episode. The video is available on below

audio here :

google podcast : https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lMTcyMGUwYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MjVmN2NkMmYtNzQ0ZC00ZmYzLWExMmUtZDdkMmI1OTkxYTI4?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjwiabayOGAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

apple podcast : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1687861465

References :


Kumar, G. V. Pavan. “12 Years as a Faculty Member in India – 12 Lessons.” Scatterings (blog), May 25, 2022. https://backscattering.wordpress.com/2022/05/25/12-years-as-a-faculty-in-india-12-lessons/.

“A Case for Compassionate Rationality.” Scatterings (blog), July 1, 2023. https://backscattering.wordpress.com/2023/07/01/a-case-for-compassionate-rationality/.

“New Episode : Science, Rationality and Compassion.” Scatterings (blog), May 27, 2023. https://backscattering.wordpress.com/2023/05/27/new-episode-science-rationality-and-compassion/.Pinker, Steven. “Rationality.” Accessed May 26, 2023. https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Rationality/HT0NEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.

Weinberg, Steven. “Four Golden Lessons.” Nature 426, no. 6965 (November 2003): 389–389. https://doi.org/10.1038/426389a.

Born before Oppenheimer: molecular quantum mechanics

Related Twitter thread

Namaste, Hola, Welcome!

I am G.V. Pavan Kumar, the author of this blog.

My research interests are :

  • Optics and  Soft Matter Physics
  • History of Science

In my research group, we study the interaction of light with soft-matter from a photonics viewpoint.

Until now, I have supervised 11 PhD theses, 11 MS theses, a few post-docs and several undergraduate students at IISER Pune (see my group members – past and present). I continue to learn a lot from them.

See our publications sorted by : topics / chronology.

Another strand of my research is the history of science. I am interested in the historical evolution of ideas in physical sciences and technology. I research the life and work of past scientists, innovators, and people driven by curiosity, and I write about them from an Indian and Asian perspective. My motivation is to humanize science.

Writing has been an integral part of my life since my childhood (1980s), and I have been in the process since the ‘pre-internet’ era. I have been blogging since 2008 or so. You can access my old blog site here.

Also connected to my blog are:

YouTube channel – Science meets History, 

podcast – Pratidhvani: Humanizing Science. 

My blog integrates all of the above.

official profile

lab webpage

twitter feed

You can access and listen to my audio podcast – Pratidhvani – Humanizing Science, on -Spotify, YouTube (audio), Google Podcast or Apple podcast (all links below).

Youtube channel

Podcast Pratidhvani – Spotify

Podcast Pratidhvani -Google podcast

Podcast Pratidhvani -Apple podcast

You can give your feedback here.

Note: My blogs/podcasts/videos are motivated by my research, teaching and learning. I create them in my personal capacity.

New paper : Optothermoelectric trapping of single nano-diamonds

Fluorescent video imaging of trapping a single fluorescent nano-diamond on a gold nanoparticle

We have a new paper appearing in Optics Letters on optical manipulation of fluorescent nano-diamonds. This experimental work (with some simulations) was performed by our group member Ashutosh Shukla in collaboration with the group of Prof. Kasturi Saha (IIT-Bombay). Our alumni, Sunny Tiwari, gave vital inputs to perform the experiments.

Fluorescent nano-diamonds have emerged as important (quantum) imaging agents in biological applications. It remains a challenge to manipulate them in complex fluidic environments.

Herein, we have come up with an optical trapping method based on opto-thermoelectric effect (see Fluorescence imaging video above). By using opto-thermal potentials created by a single gold nanoparticle (~200nm) on a glass surface, we have been able to trap individual nano-diamonds, and capture their spectral signatures. The Brownian motion in the trap can be tracked, and this leads to the measurement of effective trap stiffness. Furthermore, we extrapolate this thermo-plasmonic trapping method to trap and track individual nano-diamonds on silver nanowires.

As mentioned in the abstract of the manuscript, we envisage that our drop-casting platform can be extrapolated to perform targeted, low-power trapping, manipulation, and multimodal imaging of FNDs inside biological systems such as cells.

arxiv link to the paper : https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02874

below is the snapshot of the abstract of the paper from journal’s early posting :

Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop – History of Optical Manipulation

Below is a video blog featuring Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop as part of history of optical manipulation. Also pictured in the blog are : Giorgio Volpe (UC, London) and Agnese Callegari (University of Gothenburg). Pictures taken at OMC 2023 in Yokohama, Japan.

Some relevant links at the end :

Notes :

Professor Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop (2023). Available at: https://smp.uq.edu.au/profile/204/halina-rubinsztein-dunlop (Accessed: 19 April 2023).

Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬ Available at: https://scholar.google.se/citations?user=4_sqVfYAAAAJ&hl=en (Accessed: 19 April 2023).

‘Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop’ (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halina_Rubinsztein-Dunlop&oldid=1145639271 (Accessed: 19 April 2023).

seminal papers :

Friese, M.E.J. et al. (1998) ‘Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped microscopic particles’, Nature, 394(6691), pp. 348–350. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/28566.

He, H. et al. (1995) ‘Direct Observation of Transfer of Angular Momentum to Absorptive Particles from a Laser Beam with a Phase Singularity’, Physical Review Letters, 75(5), pp. 826–829. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.826.

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