Naeem Ahmad Khan

Naeem Ahmad Khan (born 12 April 1928), is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and meteorologist, known for his work to the fields of Solid-state nuclear track detector and Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance. He is a Professor of Meteorology at the Pakistan Air Force Academy, Risalpur, and a visiting professor of nuclear physics at the Air University, Pakistan Air Force.

Early life
Naeem Ahmad Khan was born on 12 April 1928 in Hoshiarpur (East Punjab) British India to an ethnic Pathan family. He completed his elementary, middle, and high school education from there and moved to New Delhi along with his family to attend Saint Stephen's College. There, Khan gained his BA with Honors in Mathematics from there in 1946.

Khan's family moved to newly founded country, Pakistan and the family settled in Karachi, West-Pakistan. Naeem Ahmad Khan attended the Sindh University where he opted MA in Mathematics in 1950, followed by his MSc in Particle Physics from the Karachi University in 1955. Khan then travelled to Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, United Kingdom with Commonwealth Scholarship. He attended Manchester University where he did his DPhil in nuclear physics from there in 1958.

Academic career
While at New Delhi, Khan joined India Meteorological Department in August 1946 where he worked there as a junior technical staff. After the partition of India, Khan's family migrated to West Pakistan, Pakistan where they settled in Karachi He then opted Pakistani citizenship to serve in Pakistan, and was transferred to Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) as a Professional Assistant. In 1950, he was promoted to assistant meteorologist at the PMD. In 1951, he joined Pakistan Air Force and did his commissioned service there. However, the same year, he left Air Force and rejoined PMD as an assistant meteorologist where he stayed there till 1961. During his doctoral studies, he served with PMD as a visiting meteorologist. While in United Kingdom, Khan worked as a post-doctoral Fellow at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, England from 1961 till 1962 and was a Research Fellow at the Bartol Research Foundation of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, United States.

After his D.Phil., Khan returned to Pakistan and was transferred to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, headquartered in Karachi. Khan began his research in physics, mainly concerning in low energy nuclear fission and low-energy physics. At PAEC, he was also promoted as Senior Scientific Officer at "PAEC Physics Laboratories, Karachi". In 1965, when Pakistan Atomic Energy Center (PAEC), Lahore, was established, Khan was given transferred to PAEC-Lahore, where he was promoted as an Officiating Director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Minerals Centre (PAEMC). In 1969, he joined newly founded nuclear technology research institute, Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) as research-director where he established the "Nuclear Physics Division" there.

In 1970, he was given transferred to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission as Director of Training and International Affairs, and then as PAEC Secretary. In 1975, he was promoted as Director of Research Technological Department (RTD) at PAEC Headquarters. In 1977, he returned to PINSTECH and was promoted as Director of the institute.

In 1969, while at PINSTECH, he began teaching and providing the training of Pakistani scientists and engineers to the field of nuclear reactor technology. He then founded the "Nuclear Physics Group (NPG)" at PINSTECH, and had Hafeez Qureshi, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Samar Mubarakmand. The NPG was an educational and research think tank group of nuclear scientists which was mandated to carry out the research in nuclear and reactor technology. Among one of his distinguished students was Mr. Muhammad Hafeez Qureshi, a mechanical engineer who became one of the chief architect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. It was Khan's teaching and guidance that Qureshi expertised in nuclear weapon technology, Isotopes and Uranium centrifuge technology.

A senior scientist at PAEC, Khan had participated in the development of an atomic bomb throughout the 1970s. Khan along with his PAEC students, Hafeez Qureshi and Samar Mubarakmand, had participated and witnessed the cold test of a nuclear device on 11 March 1983 near at Kirana Hills. The test was carried out near at Air Force's Sargodha Air Force Base, the military facility where he previously had worked as a commissioned officer during the 1950s.

In 1984, Khan was appointed chairman of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) where he led the organisation for 5 years. In 1989, Khan was appointed as Advisor (Technical) to the Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH), where he served there for seven years. In 1996, he became a vice-president of Pakistan Academy of Sciences and had served there for 1 year. In 1997, Kha moved to Karachi and joined Karachi University where he taught applied physics courses there. In 2004, Khan moved to Lahore and joined the University of the Punjab as a full professor there. At Punjab University, he had supervised the five PhDs. of PAEC scientists who earned under his supervision. In 2007, Khan moved to Risalpur where he joined Pakistan Air Force Academy to teach meteorology.

Research in physics
Khan's research explicitly revolves to the field of medical, nuclear physics and engineering. He is renowned for his work in nuclear fission production and fissional material. Khan, in 1989, co-authored the brief study of Solid-state nuclear track detection, under the name of "Solid State Nuclear Track Detection: A Useful Tool for Basic and Applied Science Research", with another PAEC scientist Hameed Ahmad Khan. In the 1980s, Khan had supervised the SSNTD project at the SSNTD Laboratory at Nuclear Engineering Division. The SSTND project have brought the rich experience and research to the field of physics in Pakistan. He had played a vital role in the established of the SSTND Laboratory, whereas he had a central role in the development of the nuclear and particle detectors at PINSTECH.

In 1989, Khan and his team of scientist at the PINSTECH have studied the behaviour of 960 MeV/nucleon 238U ions while passing through a stack of CR-39 detectors. Khan's team had observed that the uranium ions not only underwent binary fission, but also broke into +p, 2+α, and heavier ions while moving through the stack. These results are unique due to the fact that the break up takes place only when the 960 MeV/nucleon-238U ions are slowed down to about 200 MeV/nucleon energy and such events are not observed when these ions having a starting energy of 460 MeV/nucleon are slowed down to about 200 MeV/nucleon in 39CR. The results suggest that the starting energy is of great importance in such break ups.

Research paper

 * Solid State Nuclear Track Detection (SSNTD): A Useful Scientific Tool for Basic and Applied Research. Published and written by Naeem Ahmad Khan, Hameed Ahmad Khan, PINSTECH SSNTD-Laboratory, Nuclear Engineering Division.
 * Changes produced by high doses of light charged particles in registration properties of mica track detectors Hameed Ahmed Khan and Naeem Ahmad Khan Nuclear Engineering Division, Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH).
 * Charge (Z)- and Z/β-threshold values of some track detectors: Measurements and use in nuclear reaction studies by, Hameed Ahmed Khan, Naeem Ahmad Khan; Masood Ahmad
 * Pion induced interactions in tantalum, europium, antimony and zirconium, by Hameed A. Khan, Naeem A. Khan and R.J. Peterson, Solid State Nuclear Track Detection Laboratory, Nuclear Engineering Division, PINSTECH
 * Response curves for different dielectric track detectors.
 * Fission and spallation induced by 7-GeV protons on 92U, 83Bi, 82Pb, 79Au, 74W, 67Ho, and 80Ag.

Fellowships

 * Fellow, Institute of Physics, London, 1968
 * Fellow, Physical Society, London, 1958
 * Fellow, Islamic Academy of Sciences
 * Member, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission; Member, National Economic Board
 * Member, National Commission on Electronics, Pakistan
 * Member, National Commission for Science & Technology, Pakistan; Member, National Scientific Research and Development Board, Pakistan
 * Chief Editor, Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, Karachi, 1984–1989
 * Editor, COMSTECH Technology Window.