Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS holds the Cavendish Professorship of Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is Director of the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability and of the Maxwell Centre. He is also a Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore and serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore. In addition, he is one of the principal investigators in the new Cambridge-based Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) on nanotechnology and co-founder of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic.

Owning more than 140 patents and having written or co-authored over 1,100 prestigious scientific publications worldwide, Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS is one of the most influential physicists in the world. He also serves as a Council member of many prestigious global Prizes.

He and his group have developed polymer-processing techniques for conjugated polymers and demonstrated non-linear electronic excitations through electrical and optical measurements. He is credited for the first construction of MOSFET (Metal Insulator Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) with polyacetylene as the active semiconductor; the demonstration of novel mechanisms of operation with novel behavior; and the first construction of the efficient, large-area, polymeric semiconductor LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes), based on polyphenylene-vinylene. His research on OLED has been used to develop flat screens, scroll screens, and motion screens for the future with the most well-known application of his research being the OLED TV. His work has also been applied to develop polymer field-effect transistors, light-emitting diodes, photoelectric diodes, optical pump-proof tubes, and direct-printed polymer transistors.

With a world-renowned reputation and numerous achievements in both research and teaching, Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2002. His notable honors and awards include the IEE’s Faraday Medal in 2003, the Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2006, the Institute of Physics Katharine Burr Blodgett Medal, Prize with Dr. David Ffye in 2009, and the Millennium Technology Prize for the development of plastic electronics in 2010. He was knighted for “Services to Physics” in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.