SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF INDIAN PHYSICS LITERATURE DURING 2004-2018.

The paper deals with the Indian physics literature published in resources as reflected in Web of Science (WOS) during the period 2004-2018. The study analyses India's performance based on its publication output in physics, few Scientometric indices, such as the number of publications, number of citations, activity index, relative growth rate, doubling time, patterns of communication in national and international journals, are considered for portraying the different dimensions, Most prolific scientists and Institutions, and national & international collaboration from India were also considered. It was examined that during 2004-2018 there was a substantial increase in yearly output of Indian physics literature, compared to the global output ratio. The study reveals that the literature in the field of physics is gradually increasing and there is an upward trend, however there is some fluctuation in trends of publications with mean growth rate of 0.220 and average doubling time is 3.714. Among the subfields Materials Science has the largest number of publications amounting to 31.30% of the overall publications. Journal of Applied Physics has published highest number of papers i.e. 3097 with 12.5 average citations per paper. Among the Research Institutes, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has published highest number of publications i.e. 19931 among the physics research institutes in India. However the publication trends indicates that there is greater scope for higher research in physics in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]