Anthony Cullis was distinguished for his pioneering studies of the microscopic structure and behaviour of semiconducting materials. He provided the first crystallographic details of the complex impurity–iron silicide precipitation processes in device silicon, and of the important precipitation of elemental arsenic in bulk gallium arsenide. Studies of high-speed solidification phenomena in silicon, using Q-switched laser-induced melts, revealed notable evidence of constitutional supercooling and a very large enhancement of substitutional dopant solubility. He observed conclusively that amorphous silicon melts by a first-order phase transition and obtained the solidification velocity required to amorphize it.
Anthony was the first to demonstrate that quantum-domain crystalline nanostructure exists in porous silicon and can account for highly efficient light emission, under photoexcitation. Later, his work on epitaxial growth showed that strain waves in surface ripples on mismatched semiconductor layers lead to elastic relaxation by a new misfit defect-formation mechanism.
Professor Anthony Cullis FRS died on 9 December 2021.
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