Research Interests:

My research interests focus on structure-property correlations in materials for energy storage (batteries), energy harvesting (photocatalysts), and energy-efficient technologies (white LEDs).

"I combine computational materials science (DFT, MD and ML) with experimental approaches to design and discover novel materials"

Professional Experience:

 Assistant Professor, October 2024 – present

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Andhra Pradesh, Tadepalligudem, India

Institute of Eminence (IoE) Postdoctoral Fellow, December 2023 – October 2024

Department of Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India

Mentor: Dr. Sai Gautam Gopalakrishnan.

Postdoctoral Research Assistant (PDRA), September 2021 – September 2023

Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University, United Kingdom

Mentor: Dr. Anji Reddy Munnangi.

International Exchange Student, March 2019 – June 2019

Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

Mentor: Prof. Muralidhar Miryala

Industrial Experience:

Intel Research Fellow, September 2020 – August 2021

Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India.

Mentor: Dr. Ajay Kumar Vaidhyanathan

Project Intern, May 2015 – July 2015

Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Hyderabad, India

Mentor: Dr. Samir V Kamat

Teaching Experience:

Course Instructor, “Instrumental and Analytical Chemistry”, Swansea University 2021-2022

Teaching Assistant, “Chemical Physics of Modern Technical Ceramics”, IIT Madras 2018-2019

Teaching Assistant, “Physical Ceramics”, IIT Madras 2017-2018

Education:

Dual Degree (MS & Ph.D), July 2016 – May 2021

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), India

Guide: Prof. Tiju Thomas

Bachelor of Technology, July 2012 – April 2016

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT) – Nuzvid, Andhra Pradesh, India

Guide: Prof. G. Bhagavannarayana

Journal Publications:

1. Pamidi, Venkateswarlu; Naranjo, Carlos; Fuchs, Stefan; Stein, Helge; Diemant, Thomas; Li, Yueliang; Biskupek, Johannes; Kaiser, Ute; Dinda, Sirshendu; Reupert, Adam; Santosh Behara; Hu, Yang; Trivedi, Shivam; Munnangi, Anji Reddy; Barpanda, Prabeer; Fichtner, Maximilian "Single crystal P2- Na0.67Mn0.67Ni0.33O2 cathode material with improved cycling stability for sodium-ion batteries." ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 16.20 (2024): 25953-25965.
2. Muhith, Tahmid, Santosh Behara, and Munnangi Anji Reddy. "An Investigation into the Viability of Battery Technologies for Electric Buses in the UK." Batteries 10.3 (2024): 91.
3. Michalak, Anna, Santosh Behara, and Munnangi Anji Reddy "Reinvestigation of Na5GdSi4O12: A Potentially Better Solid Electrolyte than Sodium β Alumina for Solid-State Sodium Batteries." ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 16.6 (2024): 7112-7118.
4. Xu, Ruochen, Venkat Pamidi, Yushu Tang, Stefan Fuchs, Helge Stein, Bosubabu Dasari, Zhirong Zhao- Karger, Santosh Behara, Yang Hu, Shivam Trivedi, Anji Reddy Munnangi, Prabeer Barpanda, Maximilian Fichtner. "Greener, Safer and Better Performing Aqueous Binder for Positive Electrode Manufacturing of Sodium Ion Batteries." ChemSusChem (2024): e202301154.
5. Pamidi, Venkat, Shivam Trivedi, Santosh Behara, Maximilian Fichtner, and M. Anji Reddy. "Micron-sized single-crystal cathodes for sodium-ion batteries." Iscience 25.5 (2022).
6. Vavilapalli, Durga Sankar, Santosh Behara, Raja Gopal Peri, Tiju Thomas, B. Muthuraaman, M. S. Rao, and Shubra Singh. "Enhanced photo-fenton and photoelectrochemical activities in nitrogen doped brownmillerite KBiFe2O5." Scientific Reports 12.1 (2022): 5111.
7. Behara, Santosh, Smarak Rath, and Tiju Thomas. "Machine learning (ML) as a tool for phosphor design: A perspective." Materials Letters 308 (2022): 131061.
8. Jeshurun, Ashok, Irfan Mohammad, Santosh Behara, and Mallikharjuna Reddy Bogala. "Structural and optical properties of (Y3+, Tb3+)-codoped sodium bismuth titanate nanoparticles." Materials Today Chemistry 20 (2021): 100476.
9. Behara, Santosh, Kazutaka Ikeda, and Tiju Thomas. "Amphoteric behavior of Dy3+ in Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3: neutron diffraction and Raman studies." Ceramics International 47.9 (2021) 12870-2878.
10. Behara, Santosh, Taher Poonawala, and Tiju Thomas. "Crystal structure classification in ABO3 perovskites via machine learning." Computational Materials Science (2020): 110191.
11. Behara, Santosh, and Tiju Thomas. "Stability and amphotericity analysis in rhombohedral ABO3 perovskites." Materialia (2020): 100819.
12. Behara, Santosh, G. Sudha Priyanga, and Tiju Thomas. "Strain-induced effects in the electronic and optical properties of Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3: An ab-initio study." Materials Today Communications (2020): 101348.
13. Janani, R., G. Sudha Priyanga, Santosh Behara, Ambrose Ashwin Melvin, A. R. M. Shaheer, Tiju Thomas, Bernaurd shaw Neppolian, and Shubra Singh. "Enhanced solar light driven hydrogen generation and environment remediation through Nd incorporated ZnIn2S4." Renewable Energy 162 (2020): 2031- 2040.
14. Behara, Santosh, R. Hari Krishna, Miryala Muralidhar, Masato Murakami, Mohammad Irfan, Shaik Najma, and Tiju Thomas. "Amphotericity-spectroscopy correlations in Eu doped sodium bismuth titanate (Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3)." Materialia 7 (2019): 100426.
15. Tareen, Ayesha Khan, G. Sudha Priyanga, Santosh Behara, Tiju Thomas, and Minghui Yang. "Mixed ternary transition metal nitrides: A comprehensive review of synthesis, electronic structure, and properties of engineering relevance." Progress in Solid State Chemistry 53 (2019): 1-26.
16. Behara, Santosh, Lalitha Ghatti, Sivani Kanthamani, Malathi Dumpala, and Tiju Thomas. "Structural, optical, and Raman studies of Gd doped sodium bismuth titanate." Ceramics International 44.11 (2018): 12118-12124.

Conferences Attended:

1. Santosh Behara and Sai Gautam Gopalakrishnan. “Computation-driven exploration of multi-transition-metal polyanionic cathodes for sodium (Na)-ion batteries” 1st National Meeting on Sodium (-ion) Batteries (NMSB-1), IIT Bomaby, India, 2024.  Received Best Poster Award.
2. Santosh Behara and Tiju Thomas. “Prospects for data science techniques in phosphor research” Virtual conference on a FAIR Data Infrastructure for Materials Genomics (online), June 3-5, 2020.
3. Santosh Behara and Tiju Thomas. “Theoretical investigation of crystal structure prediction using Bond-Valence (BV) modelling” 13th Conference for Young Scientists in Ceramics (CYSC), Novi Sad, Serbia, October 16-19, 2019.

Achievements:

Institute of Eminence (IoE) Postdoctoral Fellowship 2023

Intel India Research Fellowship 2020-2021

Japan Students Service Organization (JASSO) Fellowship 2019

Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Fellowship 2015

Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) Scholarship, Andhra Pradesh 2010