Neil Alford is a Materials Scientist. He graduated from St Andrews University and spent 3 years working in Southeast Asia and South America as a well-site geologist. After a postdoc in Oxford he worked at ICI for 13 years and then moved to academia. He has established an international reputation for his development of functional materials, notably oxides for radiofrequency/microwave applications. His work on the properties of microwave dielectrics has led to a better understanding of the theory and factors influencing dielectric loss in these industrially relevant materials.
He received the Royal Society Armourers and Braziers medal and prize(2016), the IOM3 Platinum medal(2018) and the IOP Michael Faraday Medal and Prize (2023). His work with colleagues at Imperial College, NPL and University College London resulted in the first demonstration of a room temperature, earth’s field solid-state maser using Pentacene and the first observation of room temperature continuous wave masing in diamond with nitrogen-vacancy centres.
At Imperial College London, he has served as Head of the Department of Materials and Associate Provost.
Professional position
- Professor of Physical Electronics and Thin Film Materials, Department of Materials, Imperial College London
Awards
-
Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company Prize
