David John Richardson One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 1964) is a Professor and Deputy 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 ...

Education

Richardson was educated at St George’s

Roman Catholic School Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syst ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

and Taunton’s College. He completed his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

degree and

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in Physics at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

in 1989.

Career and research

Richardson is a pioneer in the field of photonics, best known for his work on

fibre optic 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 to ...

s and their applications. He has played a leading role in developing techniques to scale the data-carrying capacity of future

optical communication Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date b ...

networks to keep up with society's demand for ever increasing internet bandwidth. He has developed

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 to ...

s of high performance – capable, for example, of transmitting large quantities of data across the internet at high speed. Richardson was also one of the first to demonstrate the potential of compact, flexible, pulsed fibre lasers operating over a broad range of powers, pulse durations and wavelengths. Over many years he has extended the performance limits of fibre lasers, making them strong contenders to conventional lasers and contributing to their commercial success. His work extends to fibres capable of delivering

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s of optical power for manufacturing with lasers.

References

Living people British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering 1964 births Alumni of the University of Sussex {{UK-physicist-stub