Institute of Nuclear Physics
As mentioned earlier, Saha's interest in nuclear physics was aroused during his foreign trip in 1936-37. Impressed particularly by what he saw at Berkeley, he sent in 1938 his student B.D.Nag Chowdhary to Berkeley to study and work under Lawrence, and learn all he could about the cyclotron. Saha was keen to have a cyclotron in the Calcutta University and used his influence with Nehru to persuade the Tatas to give him a grant to build one. The Tatas obliged with Rs. 60,000/- which wasn't however sufficient to construct a cyclotron. In 1941 Nag Chowdhary returned, and thanks to his efforts in America, a consignment of cyclotron parts (mainly for making the magnet) soon followed. Meanwhile America entered the war and the ship carrying the next batch of equipments (mainly vacuum pumps) was sunk by the Japanese. This was major setback, and now there was no hope of getting any parts from America; anyway, American scientists, Lawrence included, had drifted towards the Manhattan Project. The parts now all had to be made in Calcutta, and this proved to be an interminable affair. Eventually it took many years to complete (it started working after Saha passed away). Apart from this Saha also started on a modest scale some cosmic-ray observations in Darjeeling. The event of the atom bomb dropping on Japan made Saha further aware of the profound importance of nuclear energy. So he resolved to establish an autonomous institute under the umbrella of the university devoted exclusively to the study of nuclear science and its prospects. As a result the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics came into being in 1948. It was declared open by Irène Joliot-Curie in 1950. As per the university regulations, Saha had to retire in 1952 both from the Palit Professorship and the post of the Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. However he retained links with both the institutes in honorary capacity.
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