| Intro | British physicist | ||||||||||||||||||
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Scientist Physicist Engineer Professor Educator Inventor |
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| From | United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||
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Academia Business Engineering Science |
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| Gender | male | ||||||||||||||||||
| Birth | 18 January 1953, London, UK | ||||||||||||||||||
| Age: | 67 years | ||||||||||||||||||
| Star sign | Capricorn | ||||||||||||||||||
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Sir Richard Henry Friend FRS FREng (born 18 January 1953) is a British physicist who is Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge and Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. Friend’s research concerns the physics and engineering of carbon-based semiconductors.. He also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore.
Education
Friend was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a PhD in 1979.
Research
Friend’s research has been applied to development of polymer field effect transistors, light-emitting diodes, photovoltaic diodes, optically pumped lasing and directly printed polymer transistors. He pioneered the study of organic polymers and the electronic properties of molecular semiconductors. He is also one of the principal investigators in the new Cambridge-based Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) on nanotechnology and co-founder of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic. Friend has co-authored over 1,000 publications and more than 20 patents. Friend’s research has been used to develop flat panel displays and future screens that can be rolled and transported.
Awards and honours
In March 2003 Friend won the IEE’s Faraday Medal. He was knighted for “services to physics” in the 2003 Birthday Honours.
Friend received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2006
In 2009, Friend was awarded the Institute of Physics Katharine Burr Blodgett Medal and Prize with Dr David Ffye.
In 2010, Friend was elected as one of the three laureates of Millennium Technology Prize for the development of plastic electronics.
In 2011 he was awarded the Harvey Prize of the Technion in Israel. He is a fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2002.
His nomination for the Royal Society reads:
Personal life
Friend is married to Carol Anne Maxwell (née Beales) with whom he has two daughters. His brother Peter Friend is a professor of transplantation and director of the Oxford Transplant Centre.