Dr. Babu Bathula is Professor of Physics at SR University, Warangal, and heads the university's Centre for Nanomaterials. His research asks one question from two directions: how the size, interfaces and defect chemistry of nanostructured semiconductors govern the movement of charge — first in electrodes that store energy, then in photocatalysts that convert it. His group designs quantum dots (notably SnO₂ QDs), MXene and g-C₃N₄ heterostructures, and ternary transition-metal oxides and sulfides for supercapacitors, zinc-ion hybrid devices and batteries aimed at electric-vehicle storage, alongside heterojunction photocatalysts for solar hydrogen generation and water purification.

Before joining SRU in 2024 he spent nine years in South Korea, as a postdoctoral fellow at Hanyang and Yeungnam Universities and then as Assistant Professor at Yeungnam University, where he led a National Research Foundation of Korea project as Principal Investigator. He has 88 Scopus-indexed publications (h-index 34), has guest-edited three journal special issues and reviewed more than 100 manuscripts for over 30 journals. He has been listed among the world's top 2% scientists (Elsevier–Stanford) and received the Young Scientist Award at the 6th Indian Youth Science Congress (Govt. of India, 2015).

At SRU he teaches Applied Physics to first-year B.Tech students, linking quantum mechanics, semiconductors and nanomaterials to the devices they use every day, and supervises doctoral research on energy-storage materials.