Naeem Ahmad Khan


Naeem Ahmad Khan,, was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a university professor of physics who was known for his work in developing techniques using the solid-state nuclear track detector and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance.
Although he worked with the Government of Pakistan for most of his career, he also taught physics at many Pakistani universities and served as the civilian scientist in the Pakistan Air Force until his death.

Early life

Naeem Ahmad Khan was born in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India on 12 April 1928. After his matriculation, Khan enrolled at the University of Delhi and attended St. Stephen's College, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with honors in mathematics in 1946. After graduating, Khan joined the Indian Meteorological Department, but transferred to the Pakistan Meteorological Department after the Partition of India in 1947.
In 1948, Khan left the Pakistan Meteorological Department to attend Sindh University in Hyderabad where he graduated with a Master of Arts in mathematics in 1950. In 1951, Khan joined the Pakistan Air Force, received a commission as Lieutenant, and worked in Air Force education units as a senior instructor. His time in the military built up his interest in physics, and he transferred to the Air Force Reserves to attend the physics program at Karachi University in 1953.
In 1955, Khan graduated with a Master of Science in physics from Karachi University, and earned funding from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1956 to pursue doctoral studies in physics in the United Kingdom. He attended the University of Manchester and was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy in nuclear physics in 1958. In 1959, he earned the fellowship of the Physical Society of London.

Scientific career

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

In 1960, Khan returned and joined the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, eventually promoted as a scientific officer in 1961, where his early research was concentrated towards low energy nuclear reactions. He eventually left PAEC for the United Kingdom. From 1961–62, Khan remained in England where he conducted his postdoctoral research at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, which was jointly funded by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. In 1962, Khan went to the United States and worked as a research fellow at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the U.S. from 1964 to 1965.
In 1965, Khan returned to Pakistan and joined PAEC as a senior scientific officer at the PAEC Minerals Center in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, and was later promoted as principal scientific officer in 1967. There, Khan was responsible for forming the Nuclear Physics Group that had mechanical engineer Hafeez Qureshi and physicists Bashiruddin Mahmud and Samar Mubarakmand as its vital members. The Nuclear Physics Division conducted fundamental calculations on neutron scattering through the gas centrifuge process, but the group was disbanded by 1969.
In 1970, Khan was posted in the corporate administration of PAEC and initially served as the Director of Training and International Affairs before becoming Secretary. His research remained focused towards developing the solid-state nuclear track detector, and his contribution was noted in aiding the work on neutron scattering. In 1968, Khan published a scientific article on the subject with Qureshi. In 1975, Khan was appointed as director of the Research Technological Department, and he later directed the Nuclear Physics Division before taking over the directorship of the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in 1977.

Chair PCSIR, academia and Government of Pakistan

In 1984, Khan left the directorship of the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology when he became chairman of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, which he chaired until he accepted the position of technical adviser to the Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation in 1989. In 1986, he helped found the Islamic World Academy of Sciences as its founding fellow to promote science and technology in the Islamic world. In 1996, Khan left COMSTECH when he was elected as the vice-president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences until 1997.
From 1997 onwards, Khan served as a professor of physics in the science faculties of Karachi University, Sindh University in Hyderabad, Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Bahauddin Zakariya University in Bahawalpur, Punjab University in Lahore, and the Air University in Islamabad. He supervised five doctorates in physics for students of Punjab University, whose funding was made possible by PAEC.
Besides teaching physics in his country's universities, Khan was employed by the Ministry of Energy and briefly served on the advisory board of the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan.
In 2007, Khan accepted an opportunity to become the Pakistan Air Force's civilian scientist and instructed its pilots on aerodynamics and meteorology at the Pakistan Air Force Academy in Risalpur. Khan died in Islamabad on 29 September 2013 and was buried there. Physicist N. M. Butt published a eulogy and obituary on his behalf at the PAS in October 2013.

Research in physics

Khan's research explicitly revolves around the field of biological applications of nuclear physics. His work is noted in fission production calculations and energy measurement through the solid-state nuclear track detector, which he pioneered in 1989 when he co-authored a brief study of his work "Solid State Nuclear Track Detection: A Useful Tool for Basic and Applied Science Research", with another PAEC scientist – Hameed Ahmad Khan. In the 1980s, Naeem Khan supervised the SSNTD project at the SSNTD Laboratory, at the Nuclear Engineering Division that was installed in the European Organization for Nuclear Research's particle accelerators. He had played a vital role in the establishment of the SSTND Laboratory, and had a central role in the development of the nuclear accelerator and particle detectors at PINSTECH.
In 1989, Khan and his team of scientists at PINSTECH studied the behaviour of 960 MeV/nucleon uranium-238 ions that passed through a stack of CR-39 detectors. His team had observed that the uranium ions not only underwent binary fission, but also broke into protons, alpha particles, and heavy ions while moving through the stack. These results were surprising, as decomposition took place only when the 960 MeV/nucleon-238U ions are slowed down to about 200 MeV/nucleon energy, but did not when these ions had a starting energy of 460 MeV/nucleon that slowed down to about 200 MeV/nucleon in 39CR detectors.

Publications

Research publications