Technically, this work stated much before I joind for my PhD. I did my MSC summer project and later on my MSc project in the Microwaves and Microwave Materials Lab of IIT Madras. My work started off as the dielectric spectroscopic studies of binary liquids with an aim to develop some anti-reflection coating paints at microwave frequencies. Somewhere during the course of my work, that I contiuned as my PhD work, I got more interested in studying the spectra (IR, Raman, NMR..) of the binary liquids and completly forgot about the anti-reflection paints!

Now, dielectric spectroscopic studies are useful to understand the influence of external parameters such as frequency of incident radiation, temperature etc on the electrical properties of the liquids. When such studies are performed at microwave frequencies, the orientataion of the molecules with respect to the incident radiation becomes the governing parameter. Hence we began to perform some computational calculations of the Hartree-Fock kind to determine the conformations of the molecules.

My research work was primarily about the determination of the nature of hydrogen bonds in binary liquid mixtures. We found that the methyl group of alcohols and ketones participates ina secondary weak bond, a concept not acceptable at that time, but now widely acknowledged.