Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri obtained BSc from MS University, Baroda followed by the MSc (Physics) from IIT Kanpur. He did his PhD (1980) from Cornell University working on universal low temperature thermal properties of glasses and amorphous solids under the supervision of Robert O Pohl. He did his postdoctoral research as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart after which he joined the Faculty of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1982 and worked there till 2004. In between, he was Director, National Physical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi (1997-2000). He joined the SN Bose National Center for Basic Sciences, Kolkata in 2004 as Senior Professor, and became its Director in 2006.

Academic and Research Achievements: Raychaudhuri's researches relate to the areas of experimental condensed matter physics and materials physics. Specifically, he has worked on the physics of transition metal oxides, particularly perovskite oxides. He is currently working on synthesis and physics of nanomaterials, nanotechnology, noise and fluctuations in complex solids, scanning probe microscopy and spectroscopy, low temperature techniques and measurements. In early years, he made a major contribution through development of a vibrating reed technique to measure low frequency elastic properties down to 10mK temperatures. These experiments established quantitatively how defects in metallic glasses can relax through interaction with electrons. One of his major contributions was to apply theories of quantum transport to oxides near the insulator-metal transition for the first time through very high precision transport measurements down to 0.3 K. It provided a clear evidence that an extensive metallic state exists in these oxides with conductivity well below the Mott minimum conductivity limit. He has made major contributions on perovskite oxide manganites, which show the property of Colossal Magnetoresistance (CMR) and in areas of electronic transport in nanowires. Recently, he has developed methods to synthesize nanotubes and nanowires within alumina templates and made contributions for understanding electronic transport in them. His activities in the area of nanosciences also span the use of SPM for lithography, optoelectronics with ZnO and nanostructured magnetic materials. He has supervised about 30 PhD scholars, and published more than 185 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Other Contributions: Professor Raychaudhuri has been associated with development of experimental activities in IISc and played a major role in the integrated PhD programme. He initiated a large number of programmes to develop the scientific and basic infrastructure at NPL while he was its Director. He is playing an important role in shaping the research programmes in the area of condensed matter physics and materials science as Member/Chairperson of a number of committees for steering major programmes. He was elected Member of the Commission on Low Temperature Physics of IUPAP.

Awards and Honours: Raychaudhuri was conferred the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship (1980), SS Bhatnagar Award in Physical Sciences (1994), Millennium Medal of the Indian Science Congress (2000), ICS Gold Medal of the Materials Research Society of India (2002), FICCI Award in Materials Science and Applied Sciences (2003), JC Bose Fellowship (2006), and Homi Bhaba Medal by INSA (2008). He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1993), National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad, and Asia-Pacific Academy of Materials (2000).