Colin Edward Webb (born 9 December 1937) is a British physicist and former professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in lasers.

Education

Webb was educated at the University of Nottingham (BSc) and

Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, wh ...

(DPhil).

Career

After working at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Webb returned to Oxford as a research fellow in physics at the Clarendon Laboratory in 1968, and was appointed to a university lectureship in 1971, becoming reader in 1990 and professor in 1992. He served as head of Atomic and Laser Physics from 1995 to 1999, and became an emeritus professor in 2002. Jesus College, Oxford appointed him to a Fellowship in 1973; he became a senior research fellow in 1988 and an emeritus fellow in 2005. Webb has supervised more than 35 DPhil students. In 1977, he founded Oxford Lasers a company that began as a manufacturer of high-power copper lasers and that today focuses on high-speed imaging and laser micro-machining technology.

Research

Webb is considered a pioneer in British laser research and has made significant contributions in the areas of hollow cathode metal-vapor lasers, copper vapor lasers, high-power copper vapor laser-pumped

dye lasers A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

, and excimer lasers. His work on hollow-cathode metal-vapor lasers led to the discovery of numerous new laser transition in the visible spectrum. His publications include (as editor in chief) ''Handbook of Laser Technology and Applications'' (2003) as well as various papers on lasers and laser mechanisms in academic journals and specialized books.C. E. Webb, High-power dye lasers pumped by copper vapor lasers, in ''High Power Dye Lasers'',

F. J. Duarte Francisco Javier "Frank" Duarte (born c. 1954) is a laser physicist and author/editor of several books on tunable lasers. His research on physical optics and laser development has won several awards, including an Engineering Excellence Award in ...

(Ed.) (Springer, Berlin, 1991) Chapter 5. He has also co-authored a textbook in laser physics in 2010, with Simon Hooker of Oxford.S. Hooker and C. E. Webb, ''Laser Physics'', (Oxford University Press, 2010

Awards and honours

Webb was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2000. He was awarded the Duddell Medal and Prize (now called the Gabor Medal and Prize) in 1985 by the Institute of Physics and delivered the

Paterson Lecture The Clifford Paterson Lecture is a prize lecture of the Royal Society now given biennially on an engineering topic. A £500 gift is given to the lecturer. The lectures, which honour Clifford Copland Paterson, founder-director of the GEC Wembley Re ...

of the Royal Society in 1999. He won the Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize in 2001. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1991 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, Colin Living people 1937 births British physicists English physicists Experimental physicists Optical physicists Laser researchers Scientists at Bell Labs Alumni of the University of Nottingham Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Optica (society) Members of the Order of the British Empire