IEEE Photonics Society Bangladesh Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Rachel Oliver

IEEE Photonics Society Bangladesh Chapter in collaboration with the Optical Society – OSA Bangladesh Section, IEEE Photonics Society BUBT Chapter, BUET Optical and Photonics Society, OSA Dhaka University Student Chapter, OSA Brac University Student Chapter, presents the IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecture.

Distinguished Lecturer:

Dr. Rachel Oliver
Professor of Materials Science,
Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride
University of Cambridge, UK

Topic: Illuminating materials: The materials science of light-emitting diodes

Abstract: About a quarter of the electricity generated worldwide is used for lighting.  Energy efficient light bulbs based on light emitting diodes (LEDs) are about five times more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs, and hence have the potential to allow enormous energy savings.  The key material used in LEDs which emit white light is gallium nitride, a human-made compound, which has never been observed to occur in nature.  Optimising this new material to make LEDs which are efficient, long-lived and reasonably affordable has been a huge challenge, and despite the undoubted commercial success of these devices many aspects of their operation remain mysterious.  This lecture will explain how we can take LEDs apart, literally atom by atom, to understand their structure and how this controls their properties.  The relevant techniques emerged from traditional metallurgy, but are now being used to understand materials for cutting edge optoelectronic devices, illustrating how the basic principles of materials science are vital to the development of the technologies of tomorrow.

Biography:

Rachel Oliver received her MEng (2000) and PhD (2003) degrees from the University of Oxford, UK.  She then moved to Cambridge as a Research Fellow at Peterhouse College, and later won a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship. In 2011, she took up her permanent academic position at the University of Cambridge and she is currently Professor of Materials Science and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride. She held a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship in 2015-2016 and delivered the Rank Prize Lecture in Photonics in 2018.  She was one of the Women in Engineering Society’s Top 50 Women in Engineering in 2020.

Rachel’s research focusses on understanding how the small scale structure of nitride materials effects the performance and properties of devices. She uses expertise in microscopy and materials growth to develop new nanoscale nitride structures which will provide new functionality to the devices of the future.  She was the first to apply atom probe tomography to nitride materials, developed the first InGaN-based single photon source, and most recently has patented novel methods compatible with large scale manufacturing for the porosification of nitride materials.  She is a founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Poro Technologies Ltd, a University spinout company exploiting her group’s research on porous nitrides, and hence developing novel red microLEDs.

Rachel is also a passionate advocate for increased equality, diversity and inclusion in science and engineering and a founder member of The Inclusion Group for Equity in Research in STEMM (TIGERS).  She is an Equality and Diversity Champion for the University of Cambridge School of Physical Sciences and has addressed the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee on equity issues.

Address:Cambridge, England, United Kingdom