Last updated on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020
DR. ALOK SAXENA
Dr. Alok Saxena is Scientific Officer (H+), Head, Nuclear Data Physics Section, Member-Secretary, Nuclear Data Physics Centre of India (NDPCI). Earlier he has worked as Head, Fission Physics Section from 2004-2010.
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After that, he has extended these studies to the superheavy region. From extrapolation of the measured total neutron multiplicities for the mass symmetric region to zero compound nucleus excitation energy, the average number of prompt neutrons expected to be emitted in the spontaneous fission of the superheavy nuclei were determined for Z=116 and Z=124. Also, he and his coworkers have measured neutron and charged particles simultaneously in heavy-ion induced fission to point out the role of deformation in the dissipative process. He has also contributed to measurements evaporation residue cross-sections which is a sensitive probe for pre-saddle dissipation.
He and his coworkers used pre-scission neutron multiplicities to deduce shell effects at the saddle point which is still an open problem and is complicated by neutron emission due to fission delay. He has also contributed to photo-fission cross-sections for many actinide nuclei using microtron facility at Mangalore University. Apart from these studies he has also studied and contributed to other nuclear reactions such as elastic, inelastic scattering, transfer reaction, breakup reactions, giant resonances, and many papers were published.
Recently, he has been involved in nuclear data for application relevant to programs of the department of atomic energy and is working as Member-Secretary of Nuclear Data Physics Centre of India (NDPCI) and coordinating the activities related to nuclear data within the Country. He and his coworkers have also used the surrogate technique to indirectly measure neutron-induced fission cross-section for many unstable actinide nuclei which were otherwise difficult or otherwise impossible to measure directly.
These cross-sections are relevant to fast neutron reactors and incineration studies in the Accelerator driven system. He has also used 7Li (p, n) reaction as a source of neutrons to measure activation cross-sections for many nuclei. He is also involved in measurements of prompt fission neutron spectra in fast neutron-induced fission which is relevant to many reactor applications. He is also conducting the meetings of NDPCI to coordinate the work related to nuclear data. He is also involved in processing many projects related to nuclear data given to various universities in India and also involved actively in many of them as a principal collaborator or departmental coordinator.
He has also participated in neutron time of fight studies at CERN, Geneva which has resulted in many publications. He has also organized training workshops in EXFOR compilation as technical convener which contributed to an entry of results of Indian measurements in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) database well appreciated by the agency.
He has also organized many workshops and symposiums related to nuclear physics and nuclear data. The latest one is 5th Asia-Africa Science Platform Program (AASPP) workshop on Asian Nuclear Database Development at being organized at Mumbai during 22-24 Sept 2014. He has also attended meetings of IAEA related to Nuclear Reaction Data Centres of Nuclear Data Section of IAEA in 2012 and 2014. He is also chief investigator of an ongoing coordinated research program of IAEA on prompt fission neutron spectra.
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He is also a team leader from India for the CERN neutron time of flight project. He has also delivered talks in several universities as an Invited speaker as a part of the outreach program. He has also worked as a referee for Pramana journal. He also worked as a member of Accelerator Users Committee of Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi and BARC-TIFR pelletron-linac facility.
