About
Professor David Richardson FRS, FREng is a Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre/Zepler Institute and is Head of the ORC Fibre and Laser Group. He has worked on a diverse array of optical fibre related research topics during his >30 year career at the ORC including the development of novel forms of optical fibre, telecommunications, high power fibre lasers and distributed optical fibre sensors. He is globally recognised as a leading authority in optical fibre technology and its applications.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Hollow Core Optical Fibres
- Optical Communications
- High Power Fibre Lasers
Current research
Professor David Richardson’s current research focuses on: (1) the development and applications of hollow core optical fibres (e.g. for telecommunications, lasers and sensing), (2) high power fibre lasers and associated beam delivery (generally for industrial materials processing), (3) optical communications and associated devices (in particular high performance optical amplifiers and space division multiplexing,) and (5) the development of ultrafast lasers for biomedical imaging applications.
Please use the following link to get details of my current UKRI-funded research projects: https://gow.epsrc.ukri.org/NGBOViewPerson.aspx?PersonId=41202
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Biography
Professor David John Richardson FRS, FREng obtained his B.Sc. and PhD in fundamental physics from Sussex University U.K. in 1985 and 1989 respectively. He joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at Southampton University in 1989 and was awarded a Royal Society University Fellowship in 1991 in recognition of his pioneering work on short pulse fibre lasers. He was made promoted to Professor of Optoelectronics in 1999.
Professor Richardson has been Deputy Director of the ORC with responsibility for optical fibre and laser related research since 2000. He has led various large collaborative optical communications research programmes within both the UK and Europe (e.g. most recently the EPSRC Hyperhighway and Airguide Photonics Programmes and the EU PHASORS, MODEGAP and SAFARI projects), published more than 1500 research papers and produced more than 30 patents. He has supervised more the 70 PhD students to completion and supervised more than 100 postdoctoral research fellows during his career to date – many going on to develop stellar research careers in academia and industry.
Professor Richardson is a well-known figure in the international community, for example, he has chaired both leading international conferences on optical telecommunications (OFC and ECOC). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009 and most recently Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018. He is also a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA and IET. He received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2013 for his optical communications research and was a recipient of the Horizon 2020 “Breaking the Optical Communications Barrier” Prize in 2016.
Throughout his career Professor Richardson has collaborated extensively with Industry and he has co-founded two successful spin-out companies: SPI Lasers Ltd in 2000 (manufacture of industrial fibre lasers) and more recently Lumenisity Ltd (manufacturer of cables for telecommunications) in 2017.
Prizes
- Fellow of the Royal Society (2018)
- IET Team Innovation Award (2010)
- Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2013)
- EU Horizon 2020 Prize “Breaking the Optical Transmission Barriers” (2016)
- Sir Harold Hartley Medal (2022)