Eoin P. O’Reilly is an Irish physicist who, as of 2014, was chief scientific officer at the Tyndall Institute, and a professor of physics at

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) () is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork (city), Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of three Queen's Universit ...

. In 2014 he was awarded the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics for his pioneering work on strained-layer laser structures.

Early life and education

Originally from Dublin, Eoin O’Reilly received a First Class Honours in Theoretical Physics with Gold Medal and the Fitzgerald Medal for Physics at

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

followed by a PhD from

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

, Cambridge in Theory of Condensed Matter.

Career

O’Reilly was appointed as a lecturer at the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

in 1984, where he was head of the Department of Physics from 1997 to 2001. He is Chairman of the Board of the EPS Condensed Matter Division. He was Scientific Chairman of the combined CMMP-EPS CMD meeting in Brighton in April 2002, when the annual IoP Condensed Matter and Materials Physics conference was held in parallel with the 19th General Conference of the European Physical Society Condensed Matter Division, and has since been joint Chair of three further EPS Condensed Matter conferences held in Dresden, Rome and Warsaw. He has also taught and undertaken research at DCU, Fraunhofer IAF and the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, and has written more than 300 publications, including 10 book chapters, nine invited reviews and an undergraduate text book. His MPhys-level text on the "Quantum Theory of Solids" was published by

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i ...

in 2002. He is a Fellow of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

(FInstP) and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET). He is a member of the editorial Board of Semiconductor Science and Technology.

Honours and awards

He was named as a winner of the 2014 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics. He received the award for his pioneering work on strained-layer laser structures, which today underpin all optical fibre communication, from long-haul to local area networks, and act as power sources for optical amplifiers – making undersea networks possible. O’Reilly was honoured as one of four scientists who challenged the widely accepted orthodoxy of the 1980s that semiconductor lasers should be strain-free. The scientists also predicted the benefits of incorporating one strained layer or more in the active regions of semiconductors lasers, thus creating an ideal band structure.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OReilly, Eoin Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Scientists from Dublin (city) Irish physicists Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Academics of the University of Surrey