ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS LAB

I’m currently working to understand the radiation processing (solar ultraviolet and cosmic rays) happening on planetary atmospheres. Saturn’s moon Titan, Pluto and comets like 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimeko  contains complex organic molecules formed due to these processes.  We simulate this atmospheric chemistry in the laboratory using  13.56 MHz RF inductively coupled plasma in a gas mixture of Nitrogen and Methane. I’m particularly interested in the steps of polymer formation. Further  mass spectrometric studies will be performed using Electrospray Ionization and ion trap set up in our lab at IIST.​​