Professor Arunodaya Bhattacharya PhD

Professor Arunodaya Bhattacharya

School of Metallurgy and Materials
Chair in Fusion Energy

Contact details

Telephone
+44(0)1214147213
Email
a.bhattacharya.1@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Metallurgy and Materials
G7 Net Shape Building
University 麻豆精选
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Bhattacharya is an international leader in fission/fusion energy. He holds expertise in structural/functional materials, irradiation damage, mechanical properties and plasma-material interactions, and leads major UKRI and industrial R&D on commercial fusion. He is co-director of the Fusion Engineering CDT as well a a champion of global collaboration and innovation in fusion materials.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Physics (speciality Materials Science), University of Paris-Saclay, France, 2014
  • Masters in Nuclear Energy (Nuclear Reactor Physics & Engineering), University of Paris-Saclay, France, 2011
  • BSc (Hons) in Physics, Hans Raj College, University of Delhi, India, 2008

Biography

Professor Arun Bhattacharya is an internationally recognised expert in fusion and fission energy systems with expertise in nuclear materials. He holds the Chair in Fusion Energy at the University 麻豆精选, supported by Tokamak Energy, where he leads R&D on advanced structural alloys, plasma-facing components, and reactor shielding materials. Before joining Birmingham in 2024, he served as Chief Technologist in Irradiated Materials at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, leading large-scale programmes with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and supporting the STEP fusion pilot plant design. He is Co-Director of the Fusion Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training, advisor to the UK Fusion Industry Taskforce (FIT) and member of the Fusion Skills Council.

Previously, he worked as a Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US. Funded by the US DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences programme, EUROfusion and DOE-Japan collaboration he led the international collaborative studies on irradiation response of RAFM steels/ODS alloys for fusion first-wall/breeder blankets, plasma-facing materials (tungsten and its variants) and heat sink materials (Cu alloys) in support of the Demonstration Power Plant (DEMO) using the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). He also championed ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) for potential fusion applications - which is currently guiding the university’s Prosperity Partnership on spherical tokamak specific ceramic shields with Tokamak Energy.  Professor Bhattacharya’s research in Fe-Cr alloys, starting with this PhD thesis based at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Saclay, pioneered radiation effects in the this material system – which is the basis for designing several fission & fusion-focused structural steels.

Professor Bhattacharya has managed and delivered over £21 million in international research funding and advises the UK government, fusion start-ups, and major industrial consortia on fusion technologies. He has extensive industrial experience in iron and steel making through his tenure at Tata Steels in the UK and is also leading industrial R&D on Vanadium alloys -  alloy designing, performance testing, irradiation effects and alloy upscaling with existing supply chain. The latter is in support of novel fusion breeder blankets in an international collaboration of UK private fusion and national labs from France and the US.

Fluent in English, French, Hindi and Bengali, he is a passionate advocate for global partnerships, collaboration and innovation, diversity in STEM, diversity in the Energy Sector and for developing scientific opportunities for underrepresented communities.

Postgraduate supervision

Current PhDs in fusion materials include:

  • Wilna J. Geringer (at ORNL/UT Knoxville with Professor Steve Zinkle, Neutron irradiation effects in HFIR irradiated FeCr binary alloys)
  • Karen Aurora Pacho Dominguez (Advanced V alloy design & radiation effects)
  • Simon Corah (Plasma-Material Interactions and effect of fusion disruptions on PFCs)
  • Ashwin Persaud (Tritium trapping and retention in irradiated materials)
  • Hiring several in 2025 – as part of UKRI Prosperity Partnerhship with Tokamak Energy, UK Fusion Skills Voucher funding and Fusion Engineering CDT.

Key topics

Fusion Engineering, Advanced Fusion Materials, Neutron and Ion Irradiation effects, high temperature mechanical properties (creep, creep-fatigue, environmental degradation), Plasma-Wall Interaction, In-vessel component designing (breeder blankets, armour, novel divertor designs etc.), Gen-IV fission materials, High temperature materials for Gen-IV Fast reactors, SMRs.

Research

Fission and Fusion

  • Irradiation damage in metals & ceramics for fusion, fission, and space-reactor applications
  • Iron & Steel making – expertise in 8-9%Cr FM, RAFM, 9-20%Cr ODS steels, Fe-Cr-Ni based austenitic steels for nuclear applications & steels for large scale fusion vacuum vessels
  • Refractory materials (tungsten and its variants, advanced vanadium alloys):  industrial manufacturing and performance deterioration in fusion-relevant conditions
  • Fusion shielding materials performance mapping – tungsten-based shields for spherical tokamak centre column, hydrides
  • Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) for fission and fusion – transition metal borides, carbides, nitrides
  • Li-based solid ceramic breeders
  • Designing, Understanding Degradation Scenarios and Structural Integrity for Fusion In-vessel Components: Breeder Blanket Design & Associated Technologies, First-Wall, Armour, Cooling Structures etc
  • Plasma-Facing Components R&D: plasma-material Interactions, effect of fusion disruptions (ELMs, VDEs etc), tritium retention, guiding novel PFCs and divertor designs (solid, liquid-walls)
  • Radiation effects in fission reactor core-internals: SFR cladding/duct materials, LWR core internals, high-temperature SMR materials
  • Thermo-mechanical properties: Understanding irradiation-induced low-temperature hardening-embrittlement (LTHE), high-temperature Helium embrittlement (HTHE), volumetric swelling (cavity formation, amorphization, defect-cluster swelling in non-metals etc), thermal creep, irradiation creep, creep-fatigue coupling, creep-swelling synergy, effect of solid and gaseous transmutation products, synergistic effects
  • High-Heat Flux (HHF) Effects: metals, ceramics and joint failure scenarios
  • Welding/Joining: radiation effects on welds/joints, similar & dissimilar metal joining, novel joining methods
  • Materials test reactor neutron irradiations
  • Fission and fusion relevant degradation of additively manufactured alloys and ceramics
  • Materials and Designs for flow-channel Inserts targeting MHD pressure-drop mitigation in breeder blankets.
  • Fission RPV and Fusion vacuum vessel structural integrity

Publications

Recent publications

Conference contribution

Yamamoto, Y, Miller, R, Graening, T, Bhattacharya, A & Burke, MG 2024, . in Proceedings of the AM-EPRI 2024. Advances in Materials, Manufacturing, and Repair for Power Plants : Proceedings from the Tenth International Conference. Advances in Materials, Manufacturing, and Repair for Power Plants, ASM International, Bonita Springs, Florida, USA, pp. 1249-1256, 10th International Conference on Advances in Materials, Manufacturing & Repair for Power Plants, Indian Wells (Palm Springs Area), California, United States, 25/02/25.

Languages and other information

English, French, Hindi and Bengali.

Media experience

  • Key Panel Speaker at 2025 The Economist Fusion Fest. Panel on “”.

Expertise

  • (FIT)  - an independent body setup upon request from the UK Government to actively shape UK policy on fusion energy by providing a consistent, independent and insightful voice of the industry – engineers, supply chain and academia – to the UK Government. 
  • held at the University 麻豆精选: 
    • Member of the UK Fusion Skills Council

Policy experience

  • 2023- Present: Member and Advisor to Fusion Industry Taskforce (FIT)
  • 2023-Present: Member and Advisor in UK Fusion Skills Council (FSC)

Other information

Funding

  1. EPSRC Prosperity Partnership: Fusion Reactor Shielding Materials – Understanding In-service Degradation (FURESHMA)

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Co-I: Jon Binner; Funding: UKRI & Tokamak Energy
Amount: £2.167M (£1,041,144.97 from UKRI and and £1,126,730.00 from Tokamak Energy), Duration: 2025-2028

  1. The Fusion Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training

Director: Lee Margetts, Co-Directors: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Russell Goodall, Philip Edmondson, Chris Race; Funding: UK Atomic Energy Authority; Amount: £9.5M, Duration: 2025-2032

  1. Refractories Materials Testing Facility for Fusion

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, co-I: Allan Harte; Funding: UK Atomic Energy Authority; Amount: £343k, Duration: 2025-2030

  1. Experimental programme including lithium impurity control, diagnostics and irradiation testing

Lead: Tokamak Energy, sub-contract: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Funding: UK Atomic Energy Authority LIBRTI programme tender; Amount: £99.7k, Duration: 2025-2026

  1. VICE (Quantification of uncertainties in tritium breeding in ceramics, manufacturing and testing)

Lead: Oxford Sigma, sub-contract: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Funding: UK Atomic Energy Authority LIBRTI programme tender; Amount: £111.53k, Duration: 2025-2026

  1. UKAEA Fusion Skills Voucher PhD funding

(a) Tungsten to vanadium alloys joining methods

PI: Tokamak Energy and Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Amount: £65k (£40k FSVP + £25k TE), Duration: 2025-2028

(b) Radiation effects in RAFM steel welds

PI: Oxford Sigma and Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Amount: £60k (£40k FSVP + £20k TE), Duration: 2025-2028

(c) Radiation damage in TiCON precipitates in Vanadium alloys for fusion applications

PI: Tokamak Energy and Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Amount: £65k (£40k FSVP + £25k TE), Duration: 2024-2027

(vii) UKAEA Tritium Fuel Cycle Divisional Funding: Effect of Helium-Vacancy clusters on tritium trapping in fusion structural materials Tungsten to vanadium alloys joining methods

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Amount: £105k (£65k UKAEA + £40k UoB), Duration: 2024-2028

(viii) Simulating transmutation damage in fusion reactor first-wall steels

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Co-I: Philip Edmondson, Sunday Aduloju, Charles E. Kessel

Funding: US Department of Energy (DOE), Laboratory Directed R&D (LDRD); Amount: £600k, Duration: 2021-2023

(ix) Irradiation and fundamental evaluation of isotopically modified 9%Cr based Eurofer steels variants for fusion reactor applications.

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Funding: EUROfusion (DOE SPP project); Amount: $3M, Duration: 2021-2025

(x) Fundamental research using HFIR on radiation tolerance of fusion reactor structural material candidates

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Funding: UKAEA (DOE SPP project); Amount: $3.35M, Duration: 2022-2025

(xi) SANS characterization of Eurofer97 steels after ITER-TBM relevant neutron irradiations.

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Funding: ENEA-Italy via EUROfusion (DOE-SPP project); Amount: $67k, Duration: 2021-2022

(xii) Helium effects on Reduced Activation Ferritic Martensitic steels.

PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Team: Yutai Katoh and ORNL FES funded researchers; Funding: US-DOE, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences ; Amount: £156k, Duration: 2020-2022

(xiii) Mechanical properties and microstructures of post neutron irradiated RAFM steels.

Funding: US-DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences and Japan National Fusion Programme; PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya; Amount: £388k, Duration: 2020-2022

(xiv) ZrC for space reactor applications: atom probe chemical analysis

Funding: US-DOE, NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration), Office of Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation; PI: Arunodaya Bhattacharya co-I: Andrew Nelson; Amount: £38.8k, Duration: 2019-2021

(xv) In-situ irradiation studies of carbides/nitrides/carbonitrides in additively manufactured FM steels

Funding: US-DOE, Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) Rapid Turnaround Experiments
PI: Shradha Agarwal (Univ. of Tennessee), co-I: Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Philip D. Edmondson; Amount: £50k, Duration: 2019-2021

Select Invited & Keynote Talks

2025: Symposium on Fusion Engineering, MIT, USA
Fusion Structural Materials – Progress, Challenges and Design Impact. A. Bhattacharya & S.M. Levine

2023: The Minerals, Metals and Mining Society (TMS), San Diego (CA), USA
Critical evaluation of high temperature helium embrittlement in structural materials. S.J. Zinkle, Z. Qui, A. Bhattacharya

2023: TMS, San Diego (CA), USA
Experimental validation of simulated transmutation predictions for fusion materials. M.R. Gilbert, A. Bhattacharya, P.D. Edmondson, J.-C. Sublet

2022: TMS, Anaheim (CA), USA
Low Temperature Hardening-Embrittlement in neutron irradiated ODS steels. A. Bhattacharya, S.M. Levine, X. Chen, T. Nozawa, Y. Katoh, S.J. Zinkle,

Recent progress in understanding fundamental radiation degradation processes. S.J. Zinkle, Y.-R. Lin, Y. Zhao, S.M. Levine, Y. Li, Z. Qui, A. Bhattacharya, S. Agarwal

2021: MPEX User Research Forum Conference, Oak Ridge, USA
Refractory material irradiation response and possible PMI relevance. A. Bhattacharya, S.J. Zinkle 

2021: TMS, Virtual Conference, USA
Atom-probe study of nano-hardening features in neutron irradiated RAFM steels,. A. Bhattacharya, P.D. Edmondson, H. Tanigawa, T. Nozawa, J.W. Geringer, Y. Katoh, M. Rieth

2019: 14th International Symposium on Fusion Nuclear Technology, Budapest, Hungary
Advanced structural steels for the fusion blanket : alloy development, irradiation effects and characterization at ORNL. A.  Bhattacharya, X. Chen, L. Tan, Y. Yang, Y. Yamamoto, S. Dreypondt, C. Massey, D. Hoelzer, N. Sridharan, K. Field, T. Graening, C.M. Parish, S.M. Levine, A.R. Lupini, Y. Katoh, S.J. Zinkle

2019: 19th International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials (ICFRM), La Jolla, USA
Irradiation effects and advanced characterization of neutron and ion irradiated titanium diboride. A.  Bhattacharya, P. Edmondson, A. Lupini, C.M Parish, T. Koyanagi, G. Hilmas, W. Fahrenholtz, S.J. Zinkle, Y. Katoh

2019: 19th ICFRM, La Jolla, USA
High throughput phase-chemistry mapping of nano-precipitates in RAFM steels by transmission Kikuchi diffraction and analytical electron microscopy, C.M. Parish, A. Bhattacharya, J. Henry, Y. Katoh.