Abstract
Solid state chemistry was in its infancy when the author got interested in the subject. In this article, the author outlines the manner in which the subject has grown over the last four decades, citing representative examples from his own contributions to the different facets of the subject. The various aspects covered include synthesis, structure, defects, phase transitions, transition metal oxides, catalysts, superconductors, metal clusters and fullerenes. In an effort to demonstrate the breadth and vitality of the subject, the author shares his own experiences and aspirations and gives expression to the agony and ecstacy in carrying out experimental research in such a frontier area in India.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arunarkavalli T, Kulkarni G U and Rao C N R 1993Catal. Lett. 20 259
Ayyappan S, Manivannan V and Rao C N R 1993Solid State Commun. 87 551
Bahadur D, Kollali S and Rao C N R 1979J. Phys. Chem. Solids 40 981
Bednorz G and Müller K A 1986Z. Phys. B64 189
Beniere F, Catlow C R A, Shukla A K and Rao C N R 1977J. Phys. Chem. Solids 38 521
Bhat S N and Rao C N R 1969Canadian J. Chem. 47 3899
Bhat S N, Chandrashekhar G V and Rao C N R 1967Inorg. Nucl. Chem. Lett. 3 409
Bhat S V, Ganguli P, Ramakrishnan T V and Rao C N R 1987J. Phys. C20 L559
Bhide V G, Rajoria G S, Rao G R and Rao C N R 1972Phys. Rev. B6 1021
Bouet L, Tailhaides Ph, Rousset A, Kannan K R, Verelst M, Kulkarni G U and Rao C N R 1993J. Solid State Chem. 102 414
Buttrey D, Ganguly P, Honig J M and Rao C N R 1988J. Solid State Chem. 74 233
Chakrabarti A, Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1992J. Phys. Chem. 96 6762
Chakrabarti A, Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1993aChem. Phys. Lett. (in print)
Chakrabarti A, Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1993bMol. Phys. (in print)
Chandrabhas N, Shashikala M N, Muthu D V S, Sood A K and Rao C N R 1992Chem. Phys. Lett. 197 319
Chandrabhas N, Jayaram K, Muthu D V S, Sood A K, Seshadri R and Rao C N R 1993Phys. Rev. B47 10963
Chandrashekhar G V, Mehrotra P N, Subba Rao G V, Subbarao E C and Rao C N R 1967Trans. Faraday Soc. 63 1295
Cheetham A K and Rao C N R 1976Acta Crystallogr. B32 1579
Czanderna A, Rao C N R and Honig J M 1958Trans. Faraday Soc. 54 1069
Edwards P P and Rao C N R (eds) 1985The metallic and non-metallic states of matter (London: Taylor and Francis)
Gai P L, Rao C N R and Anderson J S 1975J. Phys. D 8 L157
Gai P L, Jacobson A J and Rao C N R 1976Inorg. Chem. 15 480
Ganguli A K, Manivannan V, Sood A K and Rao C N R 1989Appl. Phys. Lett. 55 2664
Ganguly P and Rao C N R 1973Mater. Res. Bull. 8 405
Ganguly P, Om Parkash and Rao C N R 1976Phys. Status Solidi A36 669
Ganguly P, Kollali S and Rao C N R 1980Magn. Lett. 1 107
Ganguly P and Rao C N R 1984J. Solid State Chem. 53 193
Ganguly P, Vasantacharya N Y, Rao C N R and Edwards P P 1984J. Solid State Chem. 53 140
Goodenough J B and Rao C N R 1983Curr. Sci. 52 391
Graziani M and Rao C N R (eds) 1991Advances in catalyst design (Singapore: World Scientific)
Graziani M and Rao C N R (eds) 1993Advances in catalyst design (Singapore: World Scientific)
Guru Row T N, Swamy H R, Acharya K R, Ramamurthy V, Venkatesan K and Rao C N R 1983Tet. Lett. 24 3265
Hegde M S, Srinivasan A, Sarma D D and Rao C N R 1982J. Electron Spectrosc. Rel. Phen. 25 231
Honig J M and Rao C N R (eds) 1981Preparation and characterization of materials (New York: Academic Press)
Hutchison J L, Anderson J S and Rao C N R 1976Proc. R. Soc. London A355 301
Jadhao V G, Singru R M, Bahadur D and Rao C N R 1976J. Phys. Chem. Solids 37 113
Kulkarni G U and Rao C N R 1991Catal. Lett. 9 427
Kulkarni G U, Aiyer H N, Vijayakrishnan V, Arunarkavalli T and Rao C N R 1993aJCS Chem. Commun. 1545
Kulkarni G U, Kannan K R, Arunarkavalli T and Rao C N R 1993bPhys. Rev. B (in print)
Laurent Ch, Rousset A, Verelst M, Kannan K R, Raju A R and Rao C N R 1993J. Mater. Chem. 3 513
Madhusudan W H, Ganguly P, Jagannathan K and Rao C N R 1980J. Chem. Soc. Dalton 1397
Manivannan V, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1991Phys. Rev. B43 8686
Manivannan V, Rangavittal N, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1993Physica C208 253
Mohan Ram R A, Singh K K, Ganguly P and Rao C N R 1983Mater. Res. Bull. 18 703
Murugesan T, Ramesh S, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1981J. Solid State Chem. 38 165
Murugesan T, Ramesh S, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1982J. Solid State Chem. 44 119
Muthu D V S, Shashikala M N, Sood A K, Seshadri R and Rao C N R 1994Chem. Phys. Lett. (to be published)
Nagarajan R and Rao C N R 1993J. Solid State Chem. 103 533
Nagarajan R, Ayyappan S and Rao C N R 1994Physica C (to be published)
Om Parkash and Rao C N R 1977Philos. Mag. 35 1111
Parthasarathy R, Rao K J and Rao C N R 1983Chem. Soc. Rev. 12 361
Pitzer K S, Gerkin R E, Gregor L V and Rao C N R 1961Pure Appl. Chem. 2 211
Prabhakar S, Rao K J and Rao C N R 1987Chem. Phys. Lett. 139 96
Prabhakar S, Rao K J and Rao C N R 1991Chem. Phys. Lett. 183 176
Pradeep T and Rao C N R 1991Mater. Res. Bull. 26 1101
Raju A R and Rao C N R 1991aSensors and Activators B 3 305
Raju A R and Rao C N R 1991bJ. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun. 1260
Ramakrishnan T V and Rao C N R 1989J. Phys. Chem. 93 4414
Ramakrishnan T V and Rao C N R 1992Superconductivity today (New Delhi: Wiley Eastern)
Ramanan A, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1981Mater. Res. Bull. 16 163
Ramanan A, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1985J. Solid State Chem. 60 376
Ramasesha S, Ramakrishnan T V and Rao C N R 1979J. Phys. C12 1307
Ramdas S, Patil K C and Rao C N R 1970J. Chem. Soc. 64
Ramdas S, Shukla A K and Rao C N R 1973Phys. Rev. 88 2975
Ramdas S and Rao C N R 1976Cryst. Latt. Defects 6 199
Ranga Rao G and Rao C N R 1990J. Phys. Chem. 94 7986
Rao C N R and Gregor L V 1959Nature (London) 183 1391
Rao C N R and Pitzer K S 1960J. Phys. Chem. 64 282
Rao C N R 1961aUltraviolet and visible spectroscopy (London: Butterworths) (First edition, several editions, reprinted and translations have appeared since)
Rao C N R 1961bCanadian J. Chem. 39 498
Rao C N R, Faeth P and Yoganarasimhan S R 1961Trans. Faraday Soc. 57 504
Rao C N R 1963Chemical applications of infrared spectroscopy (New York: Academic Press)
Rao C N R and Rao K J 1967Prog. Solid State Chem. 4 131
Rao C N R, Loehman R and Honig J M 1968Phys. Lett. A27 271
Rao C N R and Bhat S N 1969Inorg. Nucl. Chem. Lett. 5 53
Rao C N R (ed.) 1970Modern aspects of solid state chemistry (New York: Plenum Press)
Rao C N R and Subba Rao G V 1970Phys. Status Solidi 1a 597
Rao C N R, Ramdas S, Loehman R and Honig J M 1971J. Solid State Chem. 3 83
Rao C N R, Rao G R and Subba Rao G V 1973J. Solid State Chem. 6 340
Rao C N R (ed.) 1974Solid state chemistry (New York: Marcel Dekker)
Rao C N R and Subba Rao G V 1974Transition metal oxides NSRDS-NBS Monograph 49, (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards)
Rao C N R and Mott N F 1975Philos. Mag. 32 1277
Rao C N R, Om Parkash and Bahadur D 1977J. Solid State Chem. 22 353
Rao C N R and Rao K J 1978Phase transitions in solids (New York: McGraw Hill)
Rao C N R, Sarma D D, Vasudevan S and Hegde M S 1979Proc. R. Soc. London A367 239
Rao C N R, Sarma D D and Hegde M S 1980Proc. R. Soc. London A370 269
Rao C N R and Ganguly P 1981Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. 90 153
Rao C N R and Hegde M S 1981 inPreparation and characterization of materials (eds) J M Honig and C N R Rao (New York: Academic Press)
Rao C N R, Ganguly P and Jagannathan K 1982J. Mol. Struct. 79 173
Rao C N R and Sarma D D 1982J. Solid State Chem. 45 14
Rao C N R 1984Acc. Chem. Res. 17 83
Rao C N R, Buttrey D, Ganguly P and Honig J M 1984aJ. Solid State Chem. 51 266
Rao C N R, Gopalakrishnan J and Vidyasagar K 1984bIndian J. Chem. 23A 265
Rao C N R, Sparrow T G, Thomas J M and Williams B G 1984cJ. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun. 1238
Rao C N R, Thomas J M, Williams B G and Sparrow T G 1984dJ. Phys. Chem. 88 5769
Rao C N R 1985aBull. Mater. Sci. 7 155
Rao C N R 1985bInt. Rev. Phys. Chem. 4 19
Rao C N R and Ganguly P 1985 inLocalization and metal-insulator transitions (eds) D Adler and H Fritsche (New York: Plenum Press)
Rao C N R and Thomas J M 1985Acc. Chem. Res. 18 113
Rao C N R 1986aPhilos. Trans. R. Soc. London A317 37
Rao C N R 1986bProc. Indian Nat. Sci. Acad. A52 1
Rao C N R and Gopalakrishnan J 1986New directions in solid state chemistry (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press)
Rao C N R, Gopalakrishnan J, Vidyasagar K, Ganguli A K and Ramanan A 1986J. Mater. Res. 1 280
Rao C N R and Gopalakrishnan J 1987Acc. Chem. Res. 20 228
Rao C N R, Ganguly P, Raychaudhuri A K, Mohan Ram R A and Sreedhar K 1987Nature (London) 326 856
Rao C N R and Yashonath S 1987J. Solid State Chem. 88 19
Rao C N R (ed.) 1988Chemistry of oxide superconductors (Oxford: Blackwell)
Rao C N R, Ganguly P, Singh K K and Mohan Ram R A 1988J. Solid State Chem. 72 14
Rao C N R 1989Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 40 291
Rao C N R and Raveau B 1989Acc. Chem. Res. 22 106
Rao C N R 1991aPhilos. Trans. R. Soc. London 336 595
Rao C N R (ed.) 1991bChemistry of high temperature superconductors (Singapore: World Scientific)
Rao C N R, Gopalakrishnan J, Santra A K and Manivannan V 1991aPhysica C174 11
Rao C N R, Kulkarni G U, Kannan K R and Chaturvedi S 1992aJ. Phys. Chem. 96 7379
Rao C N R, Vijayakrishnan V, Santra A K and Prins M S W 1992bAngew. Chem. (Int. Ed.)31 1064
Rao C N R (ed.) 1993aChemistry of advanced materials (Oxford: Blackwell)
Rao C N R, Ganguly P, Singh K K and Mohan Ram R A 1988J. Solid State Chem. 72 14
Rao C N R 1993bJ. Mol. Struct. 292 229
Rao C N R 1993cMater. Sci. Engg. B18 1
Rao C N R, Nagarajan R, Ayyappan S, Mahesh R and Subbanna G N 1993aSolid State Commun. 88 757
Rao C N R, Nagarajan R and Vijayaraghavan R 1993bSupercond. Sci. Tech. 6 1
Rao C N R, Seshadri R and Sood A K 1993cProc. IUMRS Meeting, Tokyo (Amsterdam: Elsevier)
Rao C N R, Vijayakrishnan V, Aiyer H K and Kulkarni G U 1993dJ. Phys. Chem. 97 11157
Rao C N R 1994Chemical approaches to the synthesis of inorganic materials (New York: John Wiley) (to be published)
Rao K J and Rao C N R 1966J. Mater. Sci. 1 238
Rao K J, Subba Rao G V and Rao C N R 1967Trans. Faraday Soc. 63 1013 (also seeibid 197065 2497)
Rao K J and Rao C N R 1968Phys. Status Solidi 28 157
Sankar G, Kulkarni G U and Rao C N R 1989Prog. Cryst. Growth. Characterization 18 69
Santikary P, Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1992Chem. Phys. Lett. 192 390
Santra A K, Sarma D D and Rao C N R 1991Phys. Rev. B43 5612
Sarma D D, Hegde M S and Rao C N R 1981J. Chem. Soc. Faraday 2 77 1509
Sarma D D, Kamath P V and Rao C N R 1982Chem. Phys. 73 71
Sarma D D and Rao C N R 1989Synth. Metals 33 131
Sastry R L N, Mehrotra P N and Rao C N R 1966J. Inorg. Nucl. Chem. 28 2167
Sen P, Sarma D D, Budhani R C, Chopra K L and Rao C N R 1984J. Phys. F14 565
Seshadri R, Rao C N R, Pal H, Mukherjee T and Mittal J P 1993Chem. Phys. Lett. 205 395
Shukla A K, Ramdas S and Rao C N R 1973aJ. Solid State Chem. 8 120
Shukla A K, Ramdas S and Rao C N R 1973bJ. Chem. Soc. Faraday 2 69 207
Singh K K, Ganguly P and Rao C N R 1982Mater. Res. Bull. 17 493
Somasundaram T, Ganguly P and Rao C N R 1986J. Phys. C Solid State 19 2137
Subba Rao G V, Ferraro J R and Rao C N R 1970Appl. Spectrosc. 24 436
Subba Rao G V, Wanklyn B M and Rao C N R 1971J. Phys. Chem. Solids 32 345
Theocaris C, Jones W and Rao C N R 1984J. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun. 1291
Uppal M K, Sangster M J L and Rao C N R 1978Philos. Mag. 38 341
Uppal M K, Ramasesha S and Rao C N R 1980Acta Crystallogr. A36 356
Varma K B R, Subbanna G N, Guru Row T N and Rao C N R 1990J. Mater. Res. 5 2718
Vasudevan S, Vasan H N and Rao C N R 1979Chem. Phys. Lett. 65 444
Verelst M, Rangavittal N and Rao C N R 1993J. Solid State Chem. 104 74
Vidyasagar K, Gopalakrishnan J and Rao C N R 1984Inorg. Chem. 23 1206
Vijayaraghavan R, Rangavittal N, Grantscharova E, Guru Row T N and Rao C N R 1991Physica C179 183
Vijayakrishnan V, Chainani A, Sarma D D and Rao C N R 1992J. Phys. Chem. 96 8679
Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1985Mol. Phys. 54 245
Yashonath S and Rao C N R 1986J. Phys. Chem. 90 2552
Yoganarasimhan S R and Rao C N R 1962Trans. Faraday Soc. 58 1579
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Professor C N R Rao, born on June 30, 1934 in Bangalore, received the M. Sc. degree in Physical Chemistry from Banaras Hindu University in 1953, the Ph.D degree from Purdue University, USA in 1958 and the D.Sc. degree from the University of Mysore in 1960. He was a research scholar at IIT, Kharagpur (1953–54), Lecturer at the Indian Institute of Science (1959–63), Associate Professor (1963–64) and Professor (1964–76) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was the first Head of the Chemistry Department as well as the first Dean of Research at IIT, Kanpur. He moved back to the Indian Institute of Science in 1976 where he was founder Chairman of the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit and the Materials Research Laboratory till 1984, when he became the Director of the Institute. He has been President of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore since its founding in 1989. He was President of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences as well as the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He was Commonwealth Professor at the University of Oxford and Nehru Professor at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of over 800 research papers and has authored/edited 30 books pertaining to solid state chemistry, spectroscopy, molecular structure, surface science and chemical education. He is a member of the editorial boards of over 15 international journals and is the founder-editor of the Bulletin of Materials Science. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Wales, Cardiff (UK) and Adjunct Professor at the Pennsylvania State University.
Of the many honours received by Professor Rao, mention may be made of the Marlow Medal of the Faraday Society, London (1967), Bhatnagar Prize (1968), Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1973), Padma Shri (1974), Sir C V Raman Award of the University Grants Commission (1975), Centennial Foreign Fellowship of the American Chemical Society (1976), Federation of the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Prize (1977), S N Bose Medal of the Indian National Science Academy (1980), Royal Society of Chemistry (London) Medal (1981), P C Ray Medal of the Indian Chemical Society (1984), Padma Vibhushan (1985), Nehru Award for Science (1988), Modi Award for innovative science (1989), Hevrovsky Gold Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy (1989), Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London (1989), Meghnad Saha Medal of INSA (1990), CSIR Golden Jubilee Prize in physical sciences (1991), Blackett Lectureship of the Royal Society (1991), K K Barooah Foundation Award for Science (1992) and Goyal Prize in Chemistry (1993).
Professor Rao is a Fellow of the Science Academies in India and of the Royal Society, London. He is a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Science and Arts, the Russian Academy of Science as well as the Czech, Polish, Serbian and Slovenian Science Academies. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a founder fellow of Third World Academy of Sciences (of which he is now Vice President). He is an honorary member of the Materials Research Societies of Japan and South Korea and of the International Academy of Ceramics and honorary fellow of Institution of Engineers and IETE. He has received D.Sc. (honoris Causa) from 22 Universities. He was a member of the first National Committee on Science and Technology and later of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Union Cabinet. He was Chairman of the Science Advisory Council to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rao, C.N.R. Four decades of research in solid state chemistry. Bull. Mater. Sci. 16, 405–431 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02757645
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02757645