Prof. Pulickel Madhavapanicker Ajayan, known as PM Ajayan graduated at the top of his class with a B Tech. degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 1985.

Prof Ajayan is a pioneer in the field of nano technology. Currently he is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering at Rice University.

In 1989, he earned a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Afterwards he spent three years as a post doctoral fellow at NEC corporation in Japan, two years as a researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides at Orsay in France and one year at the Max Planck Institute fuer Metallforschung at Stuttgart in Germany.

His PhD work in 1989 involved the characterization of gold nano particles on oxide substrates and their phase instabilities. He has to his credit, two Guinness World Records for creating the smallest brush and the darkest material. Prof Ajayan's team created the darkest material known to man, a carpet of carbon nano tubes that reflects only 0.045% of the light.

Recently he led a team of scientists which has packaged lithium ion batteries, which power mobiles and smart phones, into a single nano wire. The breakthrough could be a valuable power source for new generations of nano electronics.