Martin Dawson is a physicist and technologist who has made wide-ranging contributions to the development, application and market introduction of semiconductor-based photonic and optoelectronic technologies. He is Distinguished Professor and Director of Research at the University of Strathclyde's Institute of Photonics and he is Director Emeritus of the UK's first Fraunhofer research centre.
Martin is an internationally acknowledged pioneer of micro-LEDs, a compound semiconductor technology of major interest worldwide for new forms of versatile and high-performance electronic visual displays. He has made broad and foresighted contributions to photonics based on single crystal diamond and demonstrated diamond's unique characteristics for optical devices including micro-optics and lasers. He has made notable contributions to the development of high-power and high-brightness optically-pumped semiconductor lasers, making extensive demonstrations of their exquisite performance as tuneable sources for spectroscopy and nonlinear optics.
Martin's work has been recognised by the Nick Holonyak Jr Award from Optica, the Global Solid State Lighting Award of Outstanding Achievement from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance, the Aron Kressel Award of the IEEE Photonics Society, the Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics and the Fraunhofer Taler. The University of Strathclyde was awarded the 2023 Queen’s Anniversary Prize for ‘Excellence, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Photonics’ for a case highlighting his contributions.
Martin is an internationally acknowledged pioneer of micro-LEDs, a compound semiconductor technology of major interest worldwide for new forms of versatile and high-performance electronic visual displays. He has made broad and foresighted contributions to photonics based on single crystal diamond and demonstrated diamond's unique characteristics for optical devices including micro-optics and lasers. He has made notable contributions to the development of high-power and high-brightness optically-pumped semiconductor lasers, making extensive demonstrations of their exquisite performance as tuneable sources for spectroscopy and nonlinear optics.
Martin's work has been recognised by the Nick Holonyak Jr Award from Optica, the Global Solid State Lighting Award of Outstanding Achievement from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance, the Aron Kressel Award of the IEEE Photonics Society, the Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics and the Fraunhofer Taler. The University of Strathclyde was awarded the 2023 Queen’s Anniversary Prize for ‘Excellence, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Photonics’ for a case highlighting his contributions.
Professional position
- Professor, Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde
Subject groups
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Astronomy and Physics
Condensed matter incl softmatter, liquids, nano-materials, Lasers and optoelectronics, Semi-conductors
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Engineering and Materials Science
Communications incl information theory, Engineering, electronics, Instrumentation, Materials science (incl materials engineering), Opto-electronics (inc lasers, optical microscopy/imaging, fibre optic component), Engineering, semiconductors