VCU news

By Joan Tupponce

As he would lie under the sky on summer nights during his youth, Shiv Khanna often wondered why stars twinkle so brightly. Was there someone in the vast darkness orchestrating the show?

His curiosity didn’t stop there. He was also intrigued by material objects — how phones and radios work, how planes fly in the air. Such questions, framed by his boundless inquisitive nature, attracted him to two pillars that have marked his professional and personal life: science and religion.

“In addition to being a scientist, I am a highly religious person who firmly believes in God and in his creation,” said Khanna, Ph.D., who will retire in September as Commonwealth Professor and chair of the Department of Physics in Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Humanities and Sciences.

His love of science was something he wanted to cultivate and share with others. He’s done that and more during his 39 years at VCU.

“I have realized my ultimate dream of integrating the two ambitions that shaped my early life,” Khanna said. “The first one was to become a scientist — to understand the mystery behind this existence, to be able to contribute to this underling and, finally, to be able to use this knowledge to shape things.”

His second dream related to teaching. “I wanted to follow the path of some of the most inspiring professors and become a successful professor who inspires and shapes the lives of young students,” Khanna said.

His continuing curiosity led him to the world of superatoms, clusters of atoms that can act like elements on the periodic table but with specific properties that are difficult to replicate using elements found in nature. It’s an area of study that has garnered him awards and brought him personal and professional fulfillment.

Twice the recipient of the distinguished scholar recognition for the College of Humanities and Sciences, Khanna also received the Virginia Commonwealth University Distinguished Scholarship Award in 2010 and a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award in 2013.

M. Samy El-Shall, Ph.D., the Mary Eugenia Kapp Chair in VCU’s Department of Chemistry, collaborated with Khanna on two projects, and they published several papers on clusters and nanomaterials.

“In my view, he is one of the best chairs that the Department of Physics has had. He made the department very visible regionally and nationally,” El-Shall said.

A global path with notable partners

A fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Khanna earned his Ph.D. from the University of Delhi in India, followed by a postdoctoral position at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Grenoble, France. That is where his interest in atoms took hold.

“This was a great opportunity, as they had the CNRS, European Research Center, French Nuclear Research Center and French Electronic Research Center at the same place,” Khanna said. “They had a common cafeteria, and you could talk to and meet hundreds of scientists, including some Nobel Prize winners, at lunchtime.”

He later joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a large experimental group was researching clusters. He joined a Swiss group as a scientific collaborator.

“It is here that my interest in clusters grew further, as we were the only theoretical group, surrounded by a large number of experimentalists, that were discovering really novel and interesting science,” Khanna said.

He came to VCU in 1984 after working as a visiting associate professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

“At VCU — first with two distinguished colleagues, and later with an extremely vibrant group of postdoctoral associates, graduate and undergraduate students — I have finally fulfilled my research dream through developments that, in our view, have the potential of shaping the material science in the 21st century,” Khanna said.

One of his greatest achievements, the discovery of superatoms, was accomplished through the collaboration of numerous experimental groups at VCU and around the world. Their research showed that small groups of atoms of correct size and composition could take on the chemical behavior of atoms in the periodic table.

“The discovery of superatoms has opened a new frontier of material science where novel materials with entirely new features can be designed using superatoms as the building blocks,” Khanna said. “The new materials have joint properties resulting from individual clusters and, by their mutual interactions, offer a new range of possibilities not present in natural solids made up of atoms.”

Later, Khanna collaborated with Will Castleman Jr., then a professor at Pennsylvania State University, on superatoms. The two found that small aluminum particles can generate hydrogen from water, on demand. Their finding was reported in Science, a peer-reviewed academic journal of the AAAS.

“This is an important finding as we look for hydrogen cars to solve the energy crisis,” Khanna said.

His original discoveries at VCU are being followed by scientists at Columbia University. They are experimentally making superatomic molecules and assemblies, translating the conceptual ideas discovered at VCU into real materials.

“Scientific American, a leading scientific magazine, came out with an article on 10 world-changing ideas that could transform humanity, and superatomic molecules synthesized at Columbia was one of the 10 ideas,” Khanna said.

Creating materials to serve humanity

Khanna noted that the idea of superatoms has opened a new frontier in material science, specifically the ability of groups of atoms of another element to mimic the chemical behavior of atoms.

“Replacing an element by chemical mimics offers a unique opportunity to design materials that could serve the needs of humanity,” he said. “For example, we recently showed how a cluster of atoms can convert carbon dioxide into formic acid, thus converting a greenhouse gas into a useful product.” 

In addition to prestigious journals, the work of Khanna and his research partners has been featured in more than 200 news reports worldwide. Funding for their research programs, in excess of $24 million on collaborative projects, has come from agencies such as the Army Research Office, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research and the National Institutes of Health.

Even though he is passionate about research and has made significant discoveries, Khanna considers teaching to be the most satisfying component of his profession.

“I became a teacher who does not believe in the passive transmission of knowledge but tries to inspire creative thinking, learning in groups and building ideas through mutual discussions,” he said. “I have evolved to a teacher who integrates the latest research ideas and thinking to nurture new ideas and inquisitiveness, while sharing the excitement of scientific breakthroughs that will shape the future.”

El-Shall said Khanna is full of energy, and that is reflected in his teaching.

“He’s one of the greatest teachers of physics. He can take complicated physics materials to a level that a regular person can understand. He can simplify and transfer it to get to the essence of why we do this research and what does it mean,” El-Shall said.

In terms of science, Khanna “addresses problems that not many people choose to address because they are quite complicated,” El-Shall said. “He sees them as a challenge. He’s not afraid of looking at new grounds. He has a broad focus.”

Khanna sees a tremendous need for female scientists in STEM areas and would “really like them to embrace the opportunities in the field,” he said. “During my career, I found that the most effective way to attract women and minority students is to involve them in your research projects at an early stage. In fact, many of the top research publications from my group, including one in Nature Chemistry, have been with female students.”

Throughout his four-decade career at VCU, Khanna’s teaching objective has been steadfast: to create lifelong learners who are prepared for any opportunity or challenge.

“Teaching, research and service, the three components of university life, are inextricably blended,” Khanna said. “It is through research that one gathers new scientific knowledge, and it is through teaching that the new knowledge and thinking is used to nurture young minds.”