Shaukat Hameed Khan - Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

Khan came back to Pakistan under the Rhodes Scholarship contract, and had joined the Government College University in 1968. While in teaching in the institution, through dr. Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry, Khan was introduced to dr. Abdus Salam where prof. Abdus Salam had invited Khan to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Khan joined PAEC in 1969 as a "Principle Science Officer (PSO)" where Khan had founded and established the foundation of Laser Group.

While in Pakistan, in the midst of 1971 Winter war, Khan was in Quetta, Balochistan, where he had met with future chairman of PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan. Munir Ahmad Khan who was paying a visit to then-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, have had talked with the PAEC scientists in the development of the nuclear weapon. Dr. Shaukat Hameed Khan was one of the few scientists who were invited and attended the "Multan Meeting" to meet with Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974, shortly after the Indian nuclear test. After the meeting, Khan who was the director of the Laser Labs, began to developed the nuclear weapon fuel techniques, and have done the preliminary worked on the different models for the nuclear weapon. In March 1974, Khan along with other PAEC scientists attended the meeting headed by PAEC chairman Munir Ahmad Khan and the science advisor to the Prime minister dr. Abdus Salam. In the meeting, Khan had suggested the Molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS) method for the Uranium enrichment process. However, it was declined as Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood had advocated for the Gas centrifuge route. The MLIS process is a highly complex method, with many difficult techniques, comparing to Gas centrifuge process. Both process were considered by the PAEC and, after demonstrating each processes, the PAEC decided to use Gas-centrifuge method for the Uranium enrichment project. Outvoted, the PAEC did not completely abandon the MLIS method and Khan continued to work on MLIS method in PAEC for research purposes only. In PAEC, Khan had developed the laser techniques and methods to work on the nuclear reprocessing methods. It was Khan's MLIS method that PAEC was succeeded to separate plutonium from the weapon-grade uranium. In 1970s, Khan's lab was sat up in the New Labs where he had developed the complex techniques for the Plutonium reprocessing. Khan was part of the small team of scientists that had central role in the development of the first nuclear device. In March 1983, Khan had eye-witnessed the first cold test of a nuclear device tested in Kirana Hills. His efforts led him to gain Pride of Performance award awarded by General Zia-Ul-Haq in a Presidential ceremony held in the Presidential office in Islamabad.

In 1985, Khan was made the director of the "Optics Labs" in PAEC. In 1990, the Government of Pakistan had ordered PAEC to build a Laser range-finder. The PAEC Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan had summoned dr. Shaukat Hameed Khan and assigned him the project. Khan and his team had built and developed the device indigenously, and when it was ready, the device was put in demonstration. However, after the demonstration, the Government of Pakistan had awarded the contract to dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. To avoid the confrontation between KRL and PAEC, the government had awarded another contract to PAEC to developed a Laser-guided bomb for the Pakistan Air Force. Khan was a designer of the Laser-guided bomb for Pakistan Air Force. Khan is notably known for his inventing complex Laser components for nuclear reactors to reduced the hazardous nuclear waste. In May 1998, Khan was among one of the senior scientist who had eye-witnessed the country's first and successful nuclear test in Ras Koh Hills.