A talented experimental physicist, James Atkinson was one of the last surviving pioneers of the use of radar during the Second World War. After the war he became a Reader in natural philosophy at Glasgow University and as deputy-director of research at the nuclear establishment at Dounreay, Caithness, he serve as deputydirector of the British Shipping Research Association, based in Newcastle, and finally as deputy-director of the Institute of Offshore Engineering at Heriot-Watt University.

James Robert Atkinson was born in 1916 at Wallington, Surrey. His father was an electrical engineer with the Post Office and his mother was a former schoolteacher. He went to Dulwich College prep school and, when the family moved to Leeds in 1928, continued at Leeds Grammar School. He won a scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics.

He was tutored at Cambridge by the eminent physicist Sir John Cockcroft, who encouraged him to go into radar. In 1938 he accepted a junior research post at the radar station at Bawdsey Manor, Suffolk. His research involved the development of cathode ray tubes with afterglow properties that enabled them to retain their images long enough to overcome interference.

Atkinson was moved to what was then the Telecommunications Research Establishment (later the Royal Radar Establishment) at Swanage, Dorset, to work on advanced electronic components and equipment for radar receivers. In August 1944 he was sent to learn about US radar research programmes. He returned to the UK in mid-September to report on the US activities and started a research group at the radar establishment — which had moved to Malvern, Worcestershire — into the possible use of infra-red techniques in the air, in ships and on land.

After the war Atkinson joined the Natural Philosophy Department at Glasgow University. His work involved the use of a Wilson cloud chamber, a device for making visible the tracks of particles of ionising radiation, to investigate the disintegration of the nuclei of atoms by high-energy gamma rays produced by a synchrotron.

In 1958 Atkinson took up the post of project manager of the materials-testing reactor at Dounreay. This research reactor was used to design and test possible nuclear fuels for use in the fast breeder reactor (FBR) then being developed at Dounreay.

At this time it was feared that uranium would become scarce and that it would be necessary to use plutonium to fuel nuclear reactors instead of uranium. The FBR, using a cunning design, was able to produce (“breed”) plutonium as it used up (“burnt”) uranium, producing more nuclear fuel than it consumed. A family of FBRs could, therefore, be fuelled with plutonium, needing only a small input of uranium.

In 1966 Atkinson left Dounreay to become the assistant director of research at the British Ship Research Association at Wallesend, Newcastle. The interdisciplinary research experience gained at Dounreay was of considerable use to him in his new task of defining a research programme to assist British shipbuilders to meet the formidable challenges facing them at a time when rapid changes were taking place in the world’s shipping industry.

In 1976 Atkinson was appointed deputy director of the Institute of Offshore Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. The institute’s aim was to provide interdisciplinary research to help the offshore industry with the problems posed by finding and collecting North Sea oil and gas. At the institute he was also able to develop his interest in the potential of wave energy as an alternative source of energy. He retired in 1979.

Atkinson was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

A keen sportsman, he particularly enjoyed playing cricket and golf. He maintained his interest in the problems of global warming, climate change and alternative sources of energy until a few days before he died.

Atkinson is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter; another son and daughter predeceased him.

James Atkinson, experimental physicist, Deputy Director of Research at Dounreay, was born on February 17, 1916. He died on May 9, 2008, aged 92