David Richardson (physicist)

For other people named David Richardson, see David Richardson (disambiguation).

David John Richardson (born 1964) is a British optoelectronics researcher and fellow of both the Royal Society (FRS) and the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng).^[7] He is currently a Partner Researcher at Microsoft,^[8] based in Romsey, UK, where he leads research on hollow core optical fiber technology—an approach that guides light through an air-filled core rather than conventional solid glass. Before joining Microsoft, he spent 34 years at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton.^[9] While at the ORC, he served as Professor, Deputy Director, and Head of the Fibre and Laser Group, making significant contributions to advanced optical fibre and laser research.^[2][6][10]

David Richardson FRS FREng
Richardson in 2018
Born	David John Richardson 1964 (age 60–61)[1]
Education	Taunton’s College
Alma mater	University of Sussex[2][3]
Awards	Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2013); John Tyndall Award[4] (2024); IEEE Photonics Award[5] (2025)
Scientific career
Fields	Photonics[6] Optical Fibers[6] Optical communications[6] Lasers[6] Nonlinear optics[6]
Institutions	Microsoft, University of Southampton
Thesis	The production of, and experiments with, monochromatic ultra cold neutrons (1989)
Website	www.orc.soton.ac.uk/people/djr1

Education

Richardson was educated at St George’s Roman Catholic School, Southampton and Taunton’s College.^[1] He completed his Bachelor of Science degree and PhD in Physics at the University of Sussex in 1989.^[3]

Career and research

Richardson is a pioneer in the field of photonics, best known for his work on fibre optics and their applications.^[11] He has played a leading role in developing techniques to scale the data-carrying capacity of future optical communication networks to keep up with society's demand for ever increasing internet bandwidth.^[11] He has developed optical fibres of high performance – capable, for example, of transmitting large quantities of data across the internet at high speed.^[11]

Richardson was also one of the first to demonstrate the potential of compact, flexible, pulsed fibre lasers operating over a broad range of powers, pulse durations and wavelengths.^[11] Over many years he has extended the performance limits of fibre lasers, making them strong contenders to conventional lasers and contributing to their commercial success.^[11] His work extends to fibres capable of delivering kilowatts of optical power for manufacturing with lasers.^[11]