[4] The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2008, for his contributions to science and engineering.

[6] He pursued his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia on a fellowship and secured his PhD in low temperature physics in 1957.

[1] Continuing his stay in the North America, he served as a defence research fellow at the Royal Military College of Canada (1957–59) and as a staff scientist at Philco-Ford Scientific Laboratory (1962–64) and Ledgemont Laboratory of Kennecott Copper Corporation (1964–70), during which time he also took up academic positions as an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and as a visiting professor at Cornell University.

Concurrently, he served as a consultant to IBM, Westinghouse and ARCO and had a short stint at Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin (1959–62) in between, as their fellow.

[6] Chopra was invited to head the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1987 and worked there till 1997 as the Director of the Institution when he was appointed as the Chair Professor of Renewable Energy at Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), a post he held till 2000.

[6] He was also an adviser to the Thin Film Laboratory of IIT, Delhi, and Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology, Madhya Pradesh.

[23] Uttar Pradesh Technical University conferred the degree of Doctor of Science (honoris causa) on him in 2006, followed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 2010.