Jeremy Henley Burroughes (born August 1960) is a British

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, known for his contributions to the development of

organic electronics Organic electronics is a field of materials science concerning the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of organic molecules or polymers that show desirable electronic properties such as conductivity. Unlike conventional inorga ...

through his work on the science of

semiconducting A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

s and

molecule A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...

s and their application. He is the Chief Technology Officer of Cambridge Display Technology, a company specialising in the development of technologies based on polymer light-emitting diodes.

Education

Burroughes earned his PhD from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1989. His thesis was entitled ''The physical processes in organic semiconducting polymer devices.''British Library EthOS
retrieved 2016-03-26.

Work

Early in his career, Burroughes discovered that certain conjugated polymers were capable of emitting

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...

when an

electric current An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The moving pa ...

passed through them. The discovery of this previously unknown form of

electroluminescence Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon, optical and electrical phenomenon, in which a material emits light in response to the passage of an electric current or to a strong electric field. This is distinct from black body light emissi ...

led to the foundation of Cambridge Display Technology where Burroughes has been responsible for a number of technology innovations, including the direct printing of full-colour

OLED display An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light i ...

Awards and honours

Burroughes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2012. One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." His certificate of election reads:

References

1960 births Living people British physicists Electronic engineering Alumni of the University of Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society {{UK-physicist-stub