Prof Sir Richard Friend

Director of Research in the Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

Richard Friend is at the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, where he held the Cavendish Professorship of Physics from 1995 to 2020.  He is currently a Director of Research in the Department of Physics.  His research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors, particularly polymers.  His research advances have shown that carbon-based semiconductors have significant applications in LEDs, solar cells, lasers, and electronics. These have been developed and exploited through a number of spin-off companies.  He explores novel schemes that seek to improve the performance of LEDs and solar cells, using carbon-based semiconductors.  His current projects with these are on materials with unpaired electron spins which show novel couplings of spin with photoluminescence.