David Richardson is a pioneer in the field of photonics, best known for his work on fibre optics and their applications. He has played a leading role in developing techniques to scale the data-carrying capacity of future optical communication networks to keep up with society’s insatiable demand for ever increasing internet bandwidth. He has developed optical fibres of unprecedented performance – capable, for example, of transmitting vast quantities of data across the internet at maximum speed.
He was also one of the first to demonstrate the enormous and revolutionary potential of compact, flexible, pulsed fibre lasers operating over a broad range of powers, pulse durations and wavelengths. Over many years he has greatly extended the performance limits of fibre lasers, making them strong contenders to conventional lasers and contributing to their enormous commercial success. His work extends to fibres capable of delivering kWs of optical power for manufacturing with lasers.
David Richardson is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2008) and was a recipient of the European Union H2020 Horizon Prize on “Breaking the Optical Transmission Barriers” (2016).
Professional position
- Partner Researcher, Cloud Network Engineering, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Inc
Subject groups
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Astronomy and Physics
Lasers and optoelectronics
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Engineering and Materials Science
Communications incl information theory, Opto-electronics (inc lasers, optical microscopy/imaging, fibre optic component)
