Biography

Prof. Harnam Singh Hans, born on 21st November, 1922 in Distt. Multan of Punjab state in pre-partitioned India, earned B.A. from Panjab University in 1945 and M.Sc. (Physics) degree from Banaras Hindu University in 1948. After serving as Assistant Professor at BHU for couple of years, he joined Ph.D. in 1950 with Prof. P.S. Gill, an eminent Cosmic-ray Physicist at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). He worked on development of instrument for measuring cosmic mesons.

Later, he moved to Swarthmore (PA), USA (1953-56) to complete Ph.D. work dealing with experiments on the elastic and inelastic scattering of 3.7 MeV neutrons produced using 1 MV accelerator. Dr. Hans became passionate about the Accelerator-based Nuclear Physics research that he brought components of the 150 kV Cockroft-Walton type accelerator and established it at AMU. The deuteron beam produced from the accelerator was used to produce 14.8 MeV neutrons to use it for H3 (d, n) He4 – reaction with a Tritium target. This being the first accelerator in an Indian University started a culture of accelerator-based nuclear science research in the universities and resulted in dozen of research publications in Nuclear reactions and nuclear spectroscopy, and more than half a dozen Ph.D.’s during 1958-1970.