astronomy

Kasturi Lal Chopra

Kasturi Lal Chopra is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kasturi Lal Chopra rather than just read about it. In short: Kasturi Lal Chopra (31 July 1933 – 18 May 2021) was an Indian materials physicist and a director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He was the founder of the Thin Film Laboratory at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the Microscience Laboratory at IIT, Kharagpur and held several US and Indian patents for his research findings.

Key takeaways

Kasturi Lal Chopra belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kasturi Lal Chopra to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kasturi Lal Chopra from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kasturi Lal Chopra (31 July 1933 – 18 May 2021) was an Indian materials physicist and a director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He was the founder of the Thin Film Laboratory at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the Microscience Laboratory at IIT, Kharagpur and held several US and Indian patents for his research findings. Author of a number of books on thin film technology, he was a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2008, for his contributions to science and engineering.

Biography

K. L. Chopra was born on 31 July 1933 at Chahal Kalan in the Gujranwala District of British Punjab Province to Jagat Ram and Chanan Devi Chopra. He studied science at the University of Delhi from which he graduated with honors in physics in 1952, and followed it up with a master's degree from the same university in 1954. He pursued his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia on a fellowship and secured his PhD in low temperature physics in 1957. Continuing his stay in North America, he served as a defence research fellow at the Royal Military College of Canada (1957–59) and as a staff scientist at Philco-Ford Scientific Laboratory (1962–64) and Ledgemont Laboratory of Kennecott Copper Corporation (1964–70), during which time he also took up academic positions as an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and as a visiting professor at Cornell University. Concurrently, he served as a consultant to IBM, Westinghouse and ARCO and had a short stint at Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin (1959–62) in between, as their fellow. Returning to India, he was appointed as a senior professor of solid state physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1970 where he served till 1987, holding positions such as that of the Head of Department of Physics (1970–73), Dean of the Faculty of Science (1973–74), Chair and Dean Industrial Research and Development (1975–76), Dean of the Post Graduate Studies and Research (1976–79), Head of the Centre for Energy Studies (1983–85), Senior Professor of Physics and Head of the Thin Film Solid State Technology Laboratory and the Dean of Industrial Research and Development (1985–87) till his superannuation in 1987. Chopra was invited to head the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1987 and worked there till 1997 as the Director of the Institution when he was appointed as the Chair Professor of Renewable Energy at Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), a post he held till 2000. After retiring from active service in 2000, he continues his association with many scientific and academic institutions and chairs HDF School of Management, Bhubaneswar and Budge Budge Institute of Technology, Kolkata while holding the distinguished chair professorship of Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur (formerly known as BESU, Kolkata). He was also an adviser to the Thin Film Laboratory of IIT, Delhi, and Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology, Madhya Pradesh. He was the founder member of the Society for Scientific Values, an organization serving as a watchdog for promoting integrity and ethics in scientific pursuit, and served as its president and then patron until his death. He served as the vice president of the Materials Research Society of India and was a life member of the society. He was also a former member of the council of the Indian National Science Academy (1988–90) and served as an honorary professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, IIT Delhi, IIEST Shibpur and Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Chopra died following an infection with COVID-19 on 19 May 2021, at the age of 87. He and his wife also had bilateral knee osteoarthritis.

Legacy Working on thin films and nanomatter, Chopra did pioneering studies through which he established specular scattering of electrons in epitaxial metal films, discovered field induced nucleation and growth process as well as giant photocontraction effect in amorphous chalcogenide films, developed semiconducting metallopolymer films and proposed new process protocols for low dimensional nanomaterials and high temperature superconductors. He published his findings through more than 430 research articles and ten books, which include Thin film phenomena, Thin Film Solar Cells, Thin Film Device Applications and Vacuum Science and Technology. He also edited two books, Thin Film Technology and Applications: International Workshop, New Delhi, Nov. 1984, Proceedings and Thin Films 7: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Thin Films, New Delhi, India, December 7–11, 1987. He held six US patents and eight of his know-hows are in use with Indian industries. Besides, he mentored 100 MTech and 60 PhD students in their researches and served as a member of the editorial boards of many journals. It was during his tenure as the head of the institution, the Thin Film Laboratory of IIT Delhi and Microscience Laboratory of IIT Kharagpur were established.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kasturi Lal Chopra

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kasturi Lal Chopra claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kasturi Lal Chopra before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kasturi Lal Chopra ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kasturi Lal Chopra

In research: Kasturi Lal Chopra appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kasturi Lal Chopra in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kasturi Lal Chopra is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1933 births, 2021 deaths, 20th-century Indian physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kasturi Lal Chopra outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kasturi Lal Chopra in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kasturi Lal Chopra means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kasturi Lal Chopra out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kasturi Lal Chopra in simple terms?

Why does Kasturi Lal Chopra matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kasturi Lal Chopra?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kasturi Lal Chopra.