From the Head’s Desk…

We are proud to be one of the prestigious Physics Departments in the country with an outstanding reputation for excellence in undergraduate education. We offer three-year General and four-year Special Degree programmes. We have been able to maintain standards that are acceptable internationally by having external examiners from leading universities in UK. A few hundreds of our graduates have obtained postgraduate qualifications, which includes over fifty PhD holders and a number of others are presently pursuing higher studies abroad. Many of our graduates are holding responsible positions in Sri Lanka and abroad.

The war situation that prevailed in the Jaffna Peninsula most of the time due to the ethnic conflict had a negative impact mainly on research and the atmosphere had not been conducive for research until 2009. Whatever research that was done due to individual effort and most of the research papers published were based on work done abroad. However, with the end of the war in 2009, comparatively calmer atmosphere that prevails now is conducive for research activities at the university. The staff of the Department has been able to obtain grants worth more than 30 million rupees from local and foreign sources and purchased research equipment and the Department established a well-equipped research laboratory in the country for fabricating and characterizing organic based solar cells. Opportunities for postgraduate research especially in Material Physics are now bright and the department has been pursuing research work by collaborating with Imperial College London, Edinburgh University, UK and University Illinois at Chicago, USA.

The contribution of our staff to research is reflected on the quality of research paper published by them. According to Thomson’s ISI Web of Science and www.scopus.com, the university produced more than 330 Science Citation Index (SCI) journal papers. These have been cited more than 3600 times, ten citations per paper. The department is proud to put on record that among the departments in the university, the Physics Department has published the largest number of indexed journal papers which have been highly cited. Out of 20 most cited papers published by the staff of the University of Jaffna, half are co-authored by the staff of the Department of Physics. Further,  according to Thomson’s ISI Web of Science database (Source: Essential Science Indicators), Sri Lanka contributed more than twenty  most cited papers in the world in the last decade in which the University of Jaffna contributed two papers which were also published by the staff of the department of Physics. (Source: Essential Science Indicators).

Besides conducting the academic and research activities in the department, the staff has contributed immensely in the administrative and other activities of the University. Prof.K.Kunaratnam served as Dean of the Faculty of Science and Vice Chancellor of the University. Prof.R.Kumaravadivel served as Dean of the Faculty of Science for over three terms. He was also a Council nominee for the post of Vice Chancellor three times and acting Vice Chancellor for over a year. He has been serving as a member of University Grants Commission (UGC) since April 2015. Prof.K.Kandasamy served as the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate studies and the Faculty of Science. He has also been serving as one of the members of National Research Council (NRC) since 1999. Five young staff who have been trained and completed their PhD degrees from Universities in USA, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia resumed duties at the department.

We are committed to provide a positive environment that supports each and every student in reaching their potential.

Head/Physics