research overview
- Prof. Raj's principal area of research is related to topics in 'Flash Sintering' which was pioneered in his laboratory in 2010. Since then the topic has been recognized throughout the world. It is expanding into new regimes such as manufacturing, the discovery of new materials. The method of processing dense materials from powders uses less than !% of the energy required in donventional methods. Furthermore it is an enabling technology for the synthesis of materials for lithium ion batteries and fuel cells. The flash phenomena are leading to new fundamental science, which is highly interdisciplinary. During the past year, Raj has collaborated with Prof. Reznik and Prof. Minhyea in Physics. Reznik and Raj have obtained remarkable new results at the Neutron Scattering facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Raj was the lead organizer of the third conference on 'Flash', under the auspices of ECi, New York, NY that was held Tomar, Portugal, in March of 2023. Raj raised $50K to support participants for this conference. His research group fluctuates between 3 to 6 students and post-docs. He works closely and passionately with members of his research group. In 2023 he has co-authored 8 publications. A Feature article was published in the Journal of American Ceramic Society during 2023. The work on flash sintering has evolved into new directions: (i) reactive flash sintering where the constituents of a multicomponent ceramic can be mixed elementally and flashed to yield fully dense single phase ceramic in a few seconds as low temperatures. This development can lead to new materials discovery. (ii) Flash sintiering of metals: tungsten. (iii) Ultrahigh conductivity graphene-infused-copper Raj has developed a strong interest in 'Electrification of Ceramics Manufacturing'. Raj has founded the RJR Center for Ultrafast Materials Science and Manufacturing at the Indian Institutes of Technology in Chennai and in Patna.
