Sir David Neil Payne

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FRS

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from aroun ...

(born 13 August 1944) is a British professor of

photonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...

who is director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

. He has made several contributions in areas of

optical fibre An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means ...

communications over the last fifty years and his work has affected telecommunications and laser technology. Payne’s work spans diverse areas of photonics, from telecommunications and optical sensors to nanophotonics and optical materials, including the introduction of the first optical fibre drawing tower in a university.

Career

Payne’s work in fibre fabrication in the 1970s resulted in many of the special fibres used today. He was part of the team at Southampton that invented the erbium-doped fibre amplifier, a type of

optical amplifier An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback fr ...

. Although the idea was conceived and performed by

Robert Mears Robert "Robbie" Mears (born 25 September 1974) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer. His usual position was as a . Background Mears was born in Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia. Early years Mears played for Ingl ...

. The idea was adopted at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, USA and the two teams between them developed much of the EDFA technology we know today. The EDFA was a crucial component that fuelled the rapid growth in the internet through its ability to transmit and amplify large amounts of data. Payne also pioneered

fibre laser A fiber laser (or fibre laser in British English) is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth elements such as erbium, ytterbium, neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, thulium and holmium. They are rela ...

s and led the teams that invented the single mode silica fibre laser and amplifier and broke the kilowatt barrier for the output of a fibre laser. Since then he has made discoveries which have contributed to the growth of fibre lasers for use in manufacturing and defence. Payne is the current director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the

, one of the world’s largest research groups dedicated to photonics. He also directs the

Photonics Hyperhighway Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Thou ...

research project, aimed at making internet connections 100 times faster.

Awards and recognition

He has received the UK Rank Prize for Optics, the US

Tyndall Award The John Tyndall Award is given to the "individual who has made pioneering, highly significant, or continuing technical or leadership contributions to fiber optics technology". The award is named after John Tyndall (1820-1893), who demonstrated fo ...

(1991) and the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Engineering (1998). He is also an

Eduard Rhein Foundation The Eduard Rhein Foundation was founded in 1976 in Hamburg (Germany) by Eduard Rhein. The goal of the foundation is to promote scientific research, learning, arts, and culture. This is done in particular by granting awards for outstanding achievemen ...

Laureate (Germany). In 2001 Payne was awarded the

Mountbatten Medal The IET Mountbatten Medal is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application. The Medal was established by the National Electronics C ...

of the IEE (2001) and the Kelvin Medal of the eight major engineering institutions for distinction in the application of science to engineering (2004). The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) awarded him the 2007 Photonics Award for outstanding achievements in photonics, the first awarded outside the USA. In 2008, he won the $100,000 Marconi Prize for his work in developing the erbium-doped optical fibre amplifier. In 2011, the Marconi Society elected him Chairman. He was appointed a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

in 2005. In 2007, he was elected to the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

as one of only 240 foreign members. Payne was knighted in the

2013 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2013 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

for services to photonics research and applications. In 2022, Payne was awarded the VinFuture Grand Prize, valued at US $3 million shared with 4 others, for his development of optical fiber communication over five decades related to fiber design, optical amplifiers, specialty fibers, and high-powered lasers and amplifiers that made Internet transmission possible on a global scale, thanks to the ability to boost high-speed optical signals repeatedly.

References

External links

A golden touch - Professor David Payne CBE FREng FRS
''Ingenia'', Issue 38, March 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, David N. 1944 births Living people English physicists Laser researchers Academics of the University of Southampton Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Knights Bachelor