Charles Thomas Elliott (known as Tom Elliott), (born 16 January 1939), is a scientist in the fields of narrow gap semiconductor and

infrared detector An infrared detector is a detector that reacts to infrared (IR) radiation. The two main types of detectors are thermal and photonic (photodetectors). The thermal effects of the incident IR radiation can be followed through many temperature depen ...

research.

Early life

Hailing from County Durham, he attended Washington Grammar Technical School. After gaining his Ph.D. he worked at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

Career

He joined

RRE The Royal Radar Establishment was a research centre in Malvern, Worcestershire in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1953 as the Radar Research Establishment by the merger of the Air Ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) a ...

Malvern, Worcestershire Malvern is a spa town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The centre of Malvern, Great Malvern, is a historic conservation area, which grew dr ...

in the late 1960s. In the 1970s he invented the SPRITE detector (Signal PRocessing In The Element) which was also known as the TED (Tom Elliott's Detector). This was a

photoconductor Photoconductivity is an optical and electrical phenomenon in which a material becomes more electrically conductive due to the absorption of electromagnetic radiation such as visible light, ultraviolet light, infrared light, or gamma radiation. W ...

device in which the

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

scene was scanned across the detector (made from

HgCdTe Hg1−xCdxTe or mercury cadmium telluride (also cadmium mercury telluride, MCT, MerCad Telluride, MerCadTel, MerCaT or CMT) is a chemical compound of cadmium telluride (CdTe) and mercury telluride (HgTe) with a tunable bandgap spanning the shortwav ...

) at the same rate as the carriers drifted under an applied controlled constant bias current. This device became part of TICM - the standard UK

thermal imaging Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal video and/or thermal imaging, is a process where a thermal camera captures and creates an image of an object by using infrared radiation emitted from the object in a process, which are examples of infrared i ...

common module used since the 1980s by

UK armed forces The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, su ...

. Tom Elliott received a Rank Prize in 1982 for this work and was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

in 1988. He was appointed

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in the

1994 Birthday Honours Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday. Publication dates vary from year to year. Most are published in supplements to the ''London Gazette'' and many are formally conferred by the monarch (or ...

. He won the

Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize The Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize is awarded by the Institute of Physics. It was established in 1981 and named after Clifford Copland Paterson. The prize is awarded each year for exceptional early career contributions to the application of ...

in 1997. Tom Elliott also contributed to the development of the semiconductor

indium antimonide Indium antimonide (InSb) is a crystalline compound made from the elements indium (In) and antimony (Sb). It is a narrow- gap semiconductor material from the III- V group used in infrared detectors, including thermal imaging cameras, FLIR systems ...

(InSb) as an infrared detector,

magnetic sensor A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

and fast, low voltage

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

material. He was involved in the exploitation of negative luminescence in diode structures. He retired from the successor to RRE,

DERA Dera, Dero, Daro, Dhoro, Dahar or Dehra is a word in several languages of South Asia, whose meaning is ' camp', 'mound' or 'settlement'. It appears in the names of a number of places. Geography India * Dera, Himachal Pradesh * Dera Bassi, Moha ...

in 1999 and is an honorary professor at Heriot-Watt University.

Personal life

A conference centre at DERA Malvern (by 2007 QinetiQ) was named 'The Tom Elliott Centre' in his honour when opened by the Princess Royal in 2007. He lives in Malvern.

Bibliography

* Infrared Detectors and Emitters: Materials and Devices, edited by Peter Capper and C T Elliott, Springer (2000) * An infrared detector with integrated signal processing, C. T. Elliott, Electron Devices Meeting, 1982 International, Vol. 28 Page(s): 132 - 135 (1982

* Uncooled InSb/In_1–xAl_xSb mid-infrared emitter, T. Ashley, C. T. Elliott, N. T. Gordon, R. S. Hall, A. D. Johnson, and G. J. Pryce, Applied Physics Letters Vol. 64, Iss. 18, pp. 2433-2435 (1994) * Negative luminescence and its applications, C. T. Elliott, Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 359, Number 1780 pp. 567 - 579 (2001)

References

External links