Sensing a spark, Prof. E. Fawcett offered me an opportunity, and a bonus
Prof. Eric Fawcett reposed his confidence in me in 1988, without ever having met me till then, but feeling sure just by having a look at my list of publications that I would fulfil the task of initiating a new research program he wanted to establish, for which he invited me to work at University of Toronto for two months. It speaks volumes about the knack he had to spot a person with adequate expertise to carry out a given task, successfully.
In response to an invitation from the renowned British-Canadian physicist, Prof. Eric Fawcett (b. 1927, d. 2000) to spend two months at Department of Physics, University of Toronto, I arrived at Pearson International Airport in the afternoon of March 31, 1988 and took a taxi to go straight to Alexandra Apartment Hotel at Ryerson Avenue in Toronto, where a room had been booked for me by him for my entire stay. It was equipped with a kitchenette, in case I wished to cook myself. I had just finished unpacking my bags when I got a call from Fawcett that he would pick me up soon to go for dinner together.
As I came down to meet Fawcett, for the first time in person, I found a convivial person, with a French-cut grey beard, sitting in his car and listening to a cassette that taught basic Russian language. He was then about 60, and was famous for being the first to have observed cyclotron resonance in metals. Besides, he was credited with discovering the Hall effect in type-II superconductors, and for developing the technique of magnetostriction to probe magnetism in metals and alloys. At 41, I was then far less experienced professionally, but Prof. Fawcett knew about me as someone who had published many research papers on the subject of spin-density wave antiferromagnetism of chromium alloys, a topic in which he was considered as the topmost expert in the world.
Seeing me he came out for a warm hand-shake, and switching the cassette off, he said he listens to it in spare time, so that he can communicate better during his visits to Moscow (then in USSR). After checking with me if my travel was O.K. and Hotel room comfortable, he said he would first drive me to the Physics Department, to give me a general feel of things. After a drive of about 2 kms we arrived at McLennan Physical Laboratories of University of Toronto, located at 60, St. George Street.
As we alighted, I noticed that his car had no number plate, but had instead a special plate embossed with the words ‘Science for Peace’. He explained that being the co-founder of the world-famous Science for Peace movement, he was given this as a special privilege by the local government. In the parking lot, too, Fawcett had a special slot, closest to the door connecting to the Physics Department tower-block. His room was in the basement, and the quiet corridors leading to it indicated that most staff members had already left, it being late in the evening. After settling in his room, he asked if he could make tea for both of us. I welcomed the idea.
He had all the ingredients viz. tea leaves, sugar cubes and milk powder, as well as a water heater right in his room. During the 4–5 minutes he took to make hot tea and pour into two cups, my mind was wandering into the happenings of the previous two months, beginning with my spotting a single-author review article, ‘Spin-density-wave antiferromagnetism in chromium’ [1], published by Fawcett in January 1988 in Reviews of Modern Physics, the most prestigious journal in physics then, and still so. Dreaming big, it suddenly became my fervent wish to try and become a co-author with Fawcett in writing another RMP article, this time on chromium alloys. Hence, I wrote to him in February 1988, seeking his opinion on this proposal, attaching my bio-data and a list of my research publications. In this letter, I disclosed that I was writing from Paris, where I was spending six months on a Fellowship in a CNRS lab, and was due to return to my parent institution in India on March 31. In the middle of March, I received a telex from Fawcett inviting me to spend the next two months, i.e., April and May of 1988, as Visiting Professor in his Department at University of Toronto. The telex message stated that if I accept the offer, then my task would be to kick-start the experimental research program on high Tc oxide superconductors at University of Toronto, and to ensure that a research paper is communicated on that to a reputed science journal before my two months’ stay at Toronto expired. Prof. Fawcett was alluding to the oxide ceramic materials discovered about a year ago which develop a zero electrical resistance state upon cooling below a temperature, called the transition temperature, Tc, which in the case of these oxides were quite high, compared to those of the superconducting materials known before 1987. Obviously, he was impressed by a large number of publications by me and my group on high-Tc cuprate superconductors, listed in my bio-data, even though this field was just a year old. But to my disappointment, the telex had no mention of my dream project of writing an article for RMP, with Fawcett as co-author.
Not wanting to throw away the great opportunity anyway, I sent a telex back to Fawcett, accepting his offer. I also spoke to him on phone, next day, stating that I had only two weeks left before the completion of my six-months stay on ‘Rouge’ Fellowship of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), while working as Directeur de Recherche de 2ème classe (DR2) with Prof. I.A. Campbell at Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Universite Paris-Sud, Orsay (Paris). But this was not a big constraint for Fawcett who used his contacts at Ottawa to make sure that I get my Canadian visa in time, and sent me a ticket by Air Canada. In the intervening time, I obtained the formal approval of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), my parent Institute for this additional two-months stay at UToronto. And here I was sitting with Prof. Eric Fawcett!
Fawcett explained to me that the Physics Department at UToronto was fairly large and well-known for its contributions to pioneering research in several areas of physics. But, to his dismay, no work had been initiated in his Department on the topic of high-Tc superconductors, a hot favourite across the world. And this, too, when superconductivity had been the subject of Ph.D. dissertations of four Professors working then in the Department, including himself. He admitted that he was impressed by the list of over 20 publications by me on this emerging area of high-Tc superconductors, which triggered him to convince his colleagues that it would be advantageous to invite me for two months to use my expertise in initiating a program of research on this hot topic at Toronto.
He described to me his plan to introduce me to his departmental colleagues next day over a sandwich lunch and coffee, where I could give a short presentation on the current scenario of research on high-Tc superconductors, and debate briefly on what could be done viably in two months, to set the ball rolling.
He cautioned me, however, on two things: (i) he would not himself be a participant in the new activity on superconductors to be initiated by me since he was much too engrossed with his ongoing research programs; and (ii) he would propose the plan to write a review article by us to RMP and would get in touch with me when he receives the response from that journal, which might easily take a few months.
Before going for dinner, Fawcett gave me a key to his room so that I could sit and relax in it whenever he is away, and also said that I was free to make coffee in his room or use his telephone, and was welcome to drink Perrier sparkling mineral water, pointing to a case of its bottles lying in his room.
Next day, as planned we had a luncheon meeting where Prof. Fawcett introduced me to his colleagues, namely Prof. M.B. Walker (theoretician and the then HOD), Prof. Allan Jacob, Prof. Allan Griffin, Prof. Martin J.G. Lee, and Prof. B.W. Statt, all from Physics Department and Prof. John Rutter from Metallurgy and Materials Science Department of UToronto. I presented a short update on high-Tc superconductors. I noticed that I was younger than all of them, except B.W. Statt, who was then about 28 and an Asstt. Professor. I and Statt were asked to discuss and plan the best course of action, and report next week, when all of us were to meet again, followed by weekly review meetings.
I was allotted a Chinese student, Mr. Z. Wang, for general help with experiments planned by me and Bryan Statt. Some facilities were available in-house at Physics Department, viz. furnaces to prepare new oxide samples and equipment to measure ac-resistivity and ac-susceptibility using a cryostat to cool the samples. Besides, we had access to carry out SEM/EDX/XRD analysis of samples at Prof. John Rutter’s lab, next door. Any help related to chemical analysis or bench-top chemistry was available to us at the labs of Prof. Martin Moskovits in Chemistry Department, located close by at 80, St. George Street.
Being a key person to initiate the program of research on high-Tc superconductors at Toronto was indeed a responsibility on my shoulders, but I had the expertise, having worked already as a research scientist for over 20 years at my parent institution. Besides, during my just finished stay of six months at the CNRS labs at Orsay in France, I had delivered several seminars of which two were at my host institution at Orsay, and one each at Imperial College, London; E.T.H., Zurich; Munich University, Munich; and, Royal Institute of Technology at Stockholm. Besides, I had held detailed discussions with several subject experts at these international labs.
After some deliberations, I and Bryan Statt decided to attempt the doping of Pb into Bi-sites in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-oxide system, hoping thereby to stabilize the Bi-2223 phase, i.e. (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x, which was then on the anvil in some international labs, including at Bell Labs in NJ, USA. (Here, Pb, Bi, Sr, Ca, Cu and O are, respectively, the symbols of the elements lead, bismuth, strontium, calcium, copper and oxygen, in the Periodic Table).
It took us about four weeks to systematise the synthesis protocol and thermal treatment schedules of the above oxide system. To retain the momentum, I recall that I used to interact daily with the professors of three key departments — Physics, Chemistry and Materials Science of UToronto to discuss the progress of our work, and seek all help. To steer our project in the right direction, my strategy was to elicit expert comments by interacting even more widely, for which I delivered three seminars on high-Tc superconductors during my stay at University of Toronto. Of these, two were at Physics Department and one at Chemistry Department.
Our work confirmed eventually that doping of Pb in Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu oxide superconductor promotes the growth of the 2223 bulk superconducting phase, and by replacing 20 % of the Bi- ions by Pb, we observed the zero-resistance state of the bulk sample at 108 degrees Kelvin. AC susceptibility measurements also showed a single sharp superconducting transition with an onset temperature of 108 degrees Kelvin. X-ray diffraction data and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses indicated that this phase indeed had the 2223 structure.
After making sure that we were making steady progress, I made a one-day visit to the nearby Hamilton town, at the invitation of Prof. Jules P. Carbotte, from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, at McMaster University, to deliver a seminar on high-Tc oxides. On that occasion, I was thrilled to meet Prof. M.F. Collins and Prof. C.M. Hurd from McMaster University, whose names I was familiar with. I also saw the research facilities at the nuclear research reactor at McMaster, where some senior scientists from BARC had worked in the past. Similarly, I visited National Research Council (NRC), Canada at Ottawa, at the invitation of Dr. John R. Morton to deliver a seminar.
But I was itching to visit A.T. & T. Bell Labs, if I could. Luckily, this dream came true, thanks to the recommendation by Prof. S.K. Sinha, the famous expert on synchrotron radiation and neutron scattering, who was then at Exxon Research & Engineering Co, at New Jersey. It was thrilling for me to spend a few hours with the famous high-Tc superconductivity experts R.J. Cava and B. Batlogg. I was also thrilled to have a look at the first ever point-contact transistor kept in the lobby of Bell Labs. This device assembled by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley in 1947, had fetched them the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
To meet the condition imposed by Prof. Fawcett while inviting me to UToronto, I and Bryan Statt reported our results on (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x in the form of a manuscript to the journal Physica C on May 27, 1988, well before the stipulated two months. This paper [2] was published soon after and has since been cited 158 times, as per Google Scholar Citation Index.
I have some very pleasant memories of this 1988 visit to UToronto. From my apartment hotel, Yonge St. was not far and then onto Eaton Centre shopping mall and CN Tower was a pleasant walk, which I undertook often. On one week-end I went to Gerrard St. to have the feel of a market with Indian ambience in Toronto.
Prof. Martin J.G. Lee drove me once to University’s Hart House Farm, about 70 km away, to watch a maple syrup making session, which was served later with pancakes.
Prof. Eric Fawcett was nice and helpful to me during my entire stay. I had a free hand to send telex messages (email service had not arrived yet), give sketching jobs to the office draughtsman, or send papers/packets by airmail. For all these services, Fawcett’s project funds would be debited automatically. On a few occasions, he took me for lunch at restaurants. He also took me to his home on two occasions, one of which was the Easter dinner. Turkey was cooked by Fawcett family, and it was a memorable occasion for me to meet his wife, and their three grown-up children — son Andrew and daughters Clare and Ruth.
Fawcett took me a few times with him to watch how he organized periodic meetings of Science for Peace at Toronto. Once he took me along for a formal dinner organized in honour of a special guest speaker that he had at one such meetings.
The big bonus that accrued to me from the above visit was that Fawcett informed me in early 1989 that our plan to write a review article on spin-density wave antiferromagnetism in chromium alloys had been approved by RMP. Apart from me, he proposed to take along three other co-authors (H.L. Alberts from South Africa, V.Yu. Galkin from Russia and D.R. Noakes from USA) to be thorough in its impact. My job in this enterprise was to prepare a large number of magnetic phase diagrams using the available physical property data on doping different elements in chromium, as a function of varying temperature or pressure. I quickly agreed.
Consequently, Fawcett invited me to spend two months again (Nov. 17, 1989 to Jan. 14, 1990) at Department of Physis, University of Toronto, to work on the project of writing this review article. Our aim was to show what happens to the magnetism of chromium when it is doped with small amounts of atoms of different valence which led to changes in overall electron concentration, and altered the Fermi surface nesting of chromium, in turn. We produced composition-temperature (x-T) phase diagrams of several such dopants. Most cases followed the expected rise or fall in the Neel temperature of chromium with rise in impurity content, but unusual features were observed for a few dopants such as iron (Fe), aluminium (Al), or silicon (Si), as brought out by pressure-temperature phase diagrams. Our review article drew heavily on the literature data on magnetic susceptibility, electrical resistivity, thermopower, thermal expansion, bulk modulus, and magnetoelastic properties. Preparation of this large review article took quite some time, as we intended it to be a complete update. When published in RMP in 1994, it ran into 103 pages [3], and continues to be heavily cited, with 509 citations until recently as per Google Scholar Citation Index.
Life throws opportunities at us, big ones among them are only few and far between. But if we are alert, we can grab a ‘big’ opportunity, and convert it into a windfall, provided we have the necessary talents, and can work hard with due planning, and some bit of luck.
In my case, too, one thing led to another, expanding my horizons. My second trip to Toronto facilitated my participation in the 3rd International Superconductor Applications Convention, ‘SC Global 90’, organized at the Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA in USA during Jan 19–20, 1990, where I presented ‘India Update on Superconductivity Research’, and also met Prof. A.M. Hermann from the University of Colorado at Boulder, who was then holding the world record of highest Tc, namely 125 K for the superconductor Tl2Ca2Ba2Cu3O10 (Tl: thallium; Ba: barium) made by him, a record he retained until 1994. I and my group members were also quite actively working on thallium-cuprate high-Tc superconductors, hence I had detailed discussions with Prof. Hermann during this Convention and we decided to co-edit a book on this topic. This book entitled, ‘Thallium-Based High Temperature Superconductors’ was published by Marcel Dekker, Inc., N.Y., in 1994 [4].
Although my work on superconductors and on antiferromagnetism of chromium reached logical conclusions thanks to the encouragement by Fawcett, and a few other mentors, it also grew owing to the availability of an equipment for the measurement of resistance of metallic samples with a resolution of 1 nano-ohm, assembled by me in 1970 as a part of my Ph.D. work. To check the occurrence of superconductivity in many high-Tc phases prepared in our labs, we later procured a close-cycle helium refrigerator to provide us low temperatures down to about 10 degrees Kelvin. In 1991, Prof. Olivier Kahn, a famous French scientist working at Laboratoire de Chimie Inorganique at CNRS, Orsay reported the synthesis of a molecular magnet, MnCu(pba0H)(H20)2 where pbaOH denotes 2-Hydroxy-l,3-propanediylbis(oxamato), which held its long-range magnetic order below 30 degrees Kelvin, implying its Curie temperature, Tc, was as high as 30 K. This discovery brought the possibility of synthesis and measurements of new molecular magnets within easy reach of our group. I quickly plunged into this emerging field and soon we had several new organic(molecular) magnets synthesized and measured in our own labs. This induced Prof. Kahn, a pioneer in the field of molecule-based magnets, to take me under his wings and we had a very fruitful Indo-French joint project during 1996–99. The story of how Kahn (d. 1999) mentored me during this period specifically is listed in my blog [5].
Prof. Eric Fawcett spent one month as a guest scientist at my labs at BARC, at Mumbai, in 1991, during which he was also an Invited speaker at the International Conference on Neutron Scattering held at BARC from Jan 21–25, 1991. He and his wife Patricia Fawcett, stayed at our Guest House, a few minutes’ walk from my residence. I would often take Eric to my office, a distance of about 3 kms, as a pillion rider on my old Lambretta scooter, and he didn’t care.
I, my wife and my children had a great fun time with Fawcetts, during that one month period. Once to go for a dinner at a popular restaurant about 5 km away, we hired two auto-rickshaws, one for the Fawcetts, and the other for me and my family. He found the ‘open’ vehicle ride exhilarating, and as our auto-rickshaws raced past each other, Eric was yelling in enjoyment, a rare sight. During their stay, Fawcetts would often visit my residence, but were restrictive in their food choices, being always wary of getting an upset stomach. On the last day of their stay, they came as usual to meet us in the afternoon, and Eric demanded, ‘Bring those sweet round things for me to eat. I can take risk as we are leaving for Toronto tonight’. By sweet round balls he meant ‘Gulab Jamuns’, the Indian dessert.
Fawcett informed me about the birth of his grandson Michael in late 1991. I asked him to send a picture. He sent a group photo of the whole Fawcett family. It is reproduced below.
I remained in correspondence with Fawcett, and even made a one-week stopover in January 1992 to spend some time at UToronto with him again. He took formal retirement in 1993, and our correspondence too became less frequent, thereafter. A times, I would shoot an email to mutual friends at UToronto to seek info about Fawcett. Unfortunately, he succumbed to liver cancer in September 2000.
Prof. Eric Fawcett was a true mentor for me. I recall, not infrequently, how he reposed his confidence in me in 1988, without ever having met me till then, choosing me to help his Department at Toronto to embark on an active program of experimental research on superconductors. That single event instilled confidence in me to open further doors of international collaborations, for myself. Fawcett treated me as his equal and the time spent with him groomed me for bigger things. It gave me wings to fly, thanks to a process of learning by just watching him how he handled things and people. I continue to explore new avenues and make new contributions, drawing on the passion acquired from him. For instance, I wrote a book, ‘Superconducting Materials and Their Applications: An Interdisciplinary Approach’ at age 74, which was published by IOP (UK), last year [6].
During my first meeting with Fawcett on March 31, 1988, I had noticed a slip pasted on a cupboard in his room at UToronto, which had the following message printed on it:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
— Martin Niemöller
It tallied well with the leadership qualities that Eric exhibited in the 1980s, to support an international effort to assist physicists, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union who had been dismissed from their positions in leading research institutes and universities and denied access to research institutions.
REFRENCES
[1] ‘Spin-density-wave antiferromagnetism in chromium’, Eric Fawcett, Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 60, No. 1, January 1988, pp 209–283].
[2] ‘Stabilizing the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x by Pb substitution’, B.W. Statt, Z. Wang, M.J.G. Lee, J.V. Yakhmi, P.D. de Camargo, J.F. Major and J.W. Rutter, Physica C 156 (1988) 251–255.
[3]. ‘Spin-density Wave Antiferromagnetism in Chromium Alloys’, E. Fawcett, H.L. Alberts, V.Yu. Galkin, D.R. Noakes and J.V. Yakhmi, Rev. Mod. Phys. 66(1) (1994) pp.25–128
[4]. ‘Thallium-Based High Temperature Superconductors’, Co-editors: A.M. Hermann and J.V. Yakhmi. Publishers: Marcel Dekker, Inc., N.Y. (USA), 1994. 31 chapters, 640 pages. ISBN: 0–8247–9114–2.
[5]. ‘O.K., my mentor’, by J.V. Yakhmi, March 20, 2021 Times of Israel Blog, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/o-k-my-mentor/
[6]. ‘Superconducting Materials and Their Applications: An Interdisciplinary Approach’, by J.V. Yakhmi, Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd (UK), Feb. 2021, 148 pages. Copyright © IOP Publishing Ltd 2021.
