IIT Kharagpur SATHI Centre to Cater to Diverse Needs of Scientists in the Country

IIT Kharagpur, one of the first IITs to be established and recognized as an institute of national importance by the Government of India, has been selected for the SATHI Centre initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). DST has earmarked Rs 125 crore for the centre for the following three financial years starting from 2019-20.

The centre aims at extending help to neighbouring academic Institutes, research establishments and the industries, particularly the start-ups and manufacturing units for using the state of the art sophisticated instruments, which do not exist anywhere else, in a few selected areas, says IIT Kharagpur.

What the IIT Kharagpur Sathi Centre will Comprise

1. Nano-Scale Imaging and Spectroscopy Facility
2. Ultra-High Temperature Structural Material Characterization Facility
3. Biological and Soft Materials Analysis Facility
4. Quantum Opto-Electronics Measurement Facility
5. High-Frequency Electronic Measurement Facility

The SATHI Centre will be operational 24 into 7 and round the year as per DST mandate and at least 70% of instrument time will be reserved for external users from other academic institutes, national laboratories, start-ups, entrepreneurs and the industry.

The Centre would involve the highest level of expertise of IIT Kharagpur in several key convergence domains of science and technology such as medical sciences, soft materials, structural and safety engineering, quantum photonics, advanced communication and nano technology, says the IIT KGP Chronicle website.

Apart from IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT BHU have been considered as well for similar centres by DST. Some of the equipments that would be available in the SATHI Centre are Kelvin Probe Force Microscope, Cryo-FESEM with Micro Raman and environmental imaging, High-Temperature Furnace Mounted Universal testing Machine, Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy (STED), Super-Resolution Microscope, Color X-Ray, and so on.