Donal Bradley

Donal Donat Conor Bradley, CBE, FRS, FRSA, is Lee-Lucas Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London. He is director of the Centre for Plastic Electronics^[1] and from October 2011 will also be a pro rector at the college.^[2]

Bradley is known for his contributions to the development of molecular electronic materials and devices.^[3][4] Plastic or Printed Electronics, as this technology is widely known, embodies a paradigm shift towards low temperature, solution-based device fabrication with applications in energy efficient displays and lighting, photovoltaic energy generation and medical diagnostics. His experimental investigations have significantly advanced the understanding of the physics of conjugated polymers as semiconductors and helped to demonstrate their widespread application potential.

Education

Bradley was a pupil and latterly Head Boy at Wimbledon College (The College of the Sacred Heart Wimbledon) in the London Borough of Merton. He studied as an undergraduate student (BSc Physics) at Imperial College London between 1980 and 1983 and obtained a first class honours degree. He was awarded the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Silver Medal and fellowship (FRSA) as an outstanding graduate of the Royal College of Science and served in his second year as the Royal College of Science Union Departmental Representative for Physics.

Bradley’s postgraduate research was undertaken in the Physics and Chemistry of Solids Group at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge and he received a PhD in 1987 for his thesis “Spectroscopic investigations of the processible conjugated polymers poly(p-phenylene vinylene) and poly(4,4'-diphenylenediphenylvinylene)”.

Career

After completing his PhD he was briefly a postdoctoral research associate funded by British Petroleum before being simultaneously awarded the Unilever Research Fellowship in Chemical Physics at Corpus Christi College Cambridge and a Toshiba Research Fellowship to work at the Toshiba Corporation Research and Development Center’s Chemical Laboratory in Kawasaki, Japan.

On returning to Corpus Christi College, after a year spent in Japan studying the nonlinear optical properties of poly(arylenevinylene) polymers, he played a central role in the February 1989 discovery of conjugated polymer electroluminescence, suggesting the experiment that led to Dr Jeremy Henley Burroughes’ first observation of light emission. Together with Jeremy Burroughes he undertook the initial characterization of the basic properties of poly(p-phenylenevinylene) light emitting diodes, demonstrating that the light emission phenomenon was injection electroluminescence and that the frequency response was sufficiently fast to permit video display applications.

Recognizing the importance of their discovery Bradley and Burroughes decided that it should be patented and together with Richard Friend filed a GB patent (PCT/GB90.00584) with first claim:

An electroluminescent device comprising a semiconductor layer in the form of a thin dense polymer film comprising at least one conjugated polymer; a first contact layer which is selected so that on application of an electric field to said device charge carriers of a first type are injected into the semiconductor layer; and a second contact layer which is selected so that on application of an electric field to said device charge carriers of a second type are injected into the semiconductor layers, wherein the polymer film of the semiconductor layer has sufficiently low concentration of extrinsic charge carriers that on applying an electric field between the first and second contact layers across the semiconductor layer as to render the second contact layer positive relative to the first contact layer charge carriers of said first and second types are injected into the semiconductor layer and combine to form in the conjugated polymer charge carrier pairs which decay radiatively so that radiation is emitted from the conjugated polymer.

Bradley was the corresponding author for the subsequent 1990 Nature paper reporting the discovery of conjugated polymer electroluminescence^[5]. This paper rapidly became the most highly cited paper in the field of molecular electronic materials and devices - a position that it holds to this day - and it triggered an explosion of activity around the world, thereby launching the new field of plastic electronics^[6].

Bradley is an Institute for Scientific Information highly cited author^[7] in both Materials Science and Physics with 500 papers published to date. His h-index is currently 75 and his papers have been cited a combined total of more than 33,500 times.

Named Lectures

Bradley delivered the Royal Society Bakerian Lecture on “Plastic Electronics: their science and applications” in March 2010^[8].

In December 2009 he delivered the Institute of Physics Mott Lecture on “Plastic Electronics - The Science and Application of Molecular Electronic Materials and Devices” ^[9].

In November of the same year he delivered the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Chau Wai-yin Memorial Lecture “Twenty Years of Plastic Electronics - The Science and Application of Molecular Electronic Materials”^[10] and in October the University of Liverpool Frolich Lecture “The Science and Application of Molecular Electronic Materials and Devices”.

In 2005 Bradley delivered the Institute of Physics Ireland Lecture Series (at Trinity College, Dublin, University College Cork and University College Galway) “Organic Electronics: A Molecular Vision” and in 2004 the Weissberger-Williams Lecture (same title) at the Eastman Kodak Company’s R&D Laboratories in Rochester, New York, USA.

Awards and Prizes

Bradley’s research has been recognized by

• the Institution of Engineering and Technology Faraday Medal (2010)^[11],

• the Institute of Physics Faraday Medal (2009)^[12][13],

• the Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation (2007)^[14][15][16],

• the Imperial College London Research Excellence Award (2006)^[17],

• the European Science Foundation European Latsis Prize for Nanoengineering (2005)^[18],

• the Society for Information Display Jan Rajchman Prize (2005)^[19][20][21],

• the European Union Descartes Prize (2003) for "Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes for displays (PLEDD)"

• and a Daiwa Award (1994)^[22].

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004^[23] and a fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2005.

In the 2009/2010 New Years Honours he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to science^[24][25][26].

Other honours

Bradley has been ranked since 2002 by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the 1% most highly cited physicists in the world for research published over the past two decades.^[27] Additionally he has been ranked since 2010 as one of the 1% most highly cited materials scientists in the world for research published over the past two decades.^[27]

Ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the top 100 materials scientists in the world on the basis of the impact (citations per paper) of journal papers published in the decade 2000-2010^[28].

Other activities

• 2008 - 2009 Specialist Adviser to the UK House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee Report on “Engineering: turning ideas into reality”^[29][30]
• Member of Research Councils UK Review of UK Physics 2008^[31][32]
• Co-founder and Director of Molecular Vision Ltd^[33]
• Co-inventor of conjugated polymer electroluminescence (1989) and co-founder of Cambridge Display Technology Ltd (1992)^{[34][35][36][37][38]}
• Director of the Solar Press (UK) Ltd 2009
• Rank Prize Funds Optoelectronics Committee 2010^[39]
• Member of sub-panel 9: Physics for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) quality assessment exercise

References

1. ^ "Centre for Plastic Electronics". http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/plasticelectronics. 
2. ^ "Plastic electronics pioneer appointed Pro Rector at Imperial" (Press release). Imperial College London. 15 Aug 2011. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_15-8-2011-11-52-9. Retrieved 2011-08-23. 
3. ^ "2009 Faraday Medal". http://www.iop.org/about/awards/gold/faraday/medallists/page_38449.html. 
4. ^ "2010 Faraday Medal". http://conferences.theiet.org/achievement/senior/faraday.cfm. 
5. ^ "Light-emitting diodes based on conjugated polymers". http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/burroughes/index.html. 
6. ^ "The Economic Benefit of Chemistry Research to the UK, Sept 2010 report". http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Publications/reports/ChemistryImpact.pdf. 
7. ^ "ISI Highly Cited, Donal Bradley". http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&link2=Search%20Results&AuthLastName=bradley&AuthFirstName=&AuthMiddleName=&AuthMailnstName=&CountryID=-1&DisciplineID=0&id=1987. 
8. ^ "The Royal Society Bakerian Lecture 2010". http://royalsociety.org/Bakerian-Lecture-2010/. 
9. ^ "The Institute of Physics Mott Lecture 2009". http://www.soton.ac.uk/~fangohr/software/ovf2vtk/news/CMMP2009_Announcement.pdf. 
10. ^ "Hong Kong Polytechnic University Chau-wai Yin Memorial Lecture 2009". http://www.polyu.edu.hk/iao/cwy/. 
11. ^ "Institution of Engineering and Technology Faraday Medal 2010". http://www.theiet.org/about/media-centre/press-releases/20100419.cfm. 
12. ^ "Institute of Physics Faraday Medal 2009". http://www.iop.org/about/awards/gold/faraday/medallists/page_38449.html. 
13. ^ "Norman's Blog". http://nispconnect.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/application-of-physics/. 
14. ^ "Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation 2007". http://www.imperialinnovations.co.uk/node/250. 
15. ^ "Brian Mercer Award for Innovation, Google Video". http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1248010066704955002#. 
16. ^ "Ingenia Online Article". http://www.ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/articles.aspx?Index=405. 
17. ^ "Imperial College London Research Excellence Award 2006". http://acrongen.com/filesmain/Research%20Excellence%20for%20MV%20From%20Imperial.pdf. 
18. ^ "European Science Foundation European Latsis Prize 2005". ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/dir_g/newsletter_115.pdf. 
19. ^ "Quarterly Epic Newsletter for Photonics". http://www.opera2015.org/newsletters/EPIC_NEWS_VOL2/epicv2n1_version_finale.pdf. 
20. ^ "SID 2005 Programme". http://www.sid.org/conf/sid2005/program/advprog.pdf. 
21. ^ "Imperial College Jan Rajchman Prize Announcement". http://www.imperial.ac.uk/college.asp?P=6952. 
22. ^ "Daiwa Award 1994". http://www.dajf.org.uk/_pdf/DAP%202010%20fact%20sheet.pdf. 
23. ^ "FRS Imperial College Announcement 2004". http://www.imperial.ac.uk/college.asp?P=5260. 
24. ^ "CBE Announcement Independent". The Independent (London). 31 December 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/honours-list-order-of-the-british-empire-cbe-1853550.html. 
25. ^ Palmer, Jason (31 December 2009). "CBE Announcement BBC". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8435305.stm. 
26. ^ "CBE Announcement IoP". http://www.iop.org/news/jan10/page_42473.html. 
27. ^ ^{a b} Highly Cited, Rankings by Citation
28. ^ "THE list of top 100 material scientists 2000-2010". http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Journals/THE/THE/24_February_2011/attachments/Top%20Materials%20Scientists.pdf. 
29. ^ [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmdius/50/50i.pdf "House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee Engineering: turning ideas into reality. Fourth Report of Session 2008–09, Volume I. PDF"]. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmdius/50/50i.pdf. 
30. ^ "http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/iuss-ctte-formal-minutes-07-08-final.pdf". http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/iuss-ctte-formal-minutes-07-08-final.pdf. 
31. ^ "http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33012". http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33012. 
32. ^ "http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/reviews/physics/review.pdf". http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/reviews/physics/review.pdf. 
33. ^ "http://www.london-nano.com/research-and-facilities/business-solutions/spin-outs". http://www.london-nano.com/research-and-facilities/business-solutions/spin-outs. 
34. ^ Pollitt, Michael (6 July 2006). "http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jul/06/insideit.guardianweeklytechnologysection1". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jul/06/insideit.guardianweeklytechnologysection1. 
35. ^ "http://www.add-vision.com/faq.php#faq02". http://www.add-vision.com/faq.php#faq02. 
36. ^ "http://web.mit.edu/lira/www/qualExam/biblio/glowingPlastic.pdf". http://web.mit.edu/lira/www/qualExam/biblio/glowingPlastic.pdf. 
37. ^ "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/390220.stm". BBC News. 9 July 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/390220.stm. 
38. ^ "http://www.foley.com/files/tbl_s31publications/fileupload137/2430/viewcontent.pdf". http://www.foley.com/files/tbl_s31publications/fileupload137/2430/viewcontent.pdf. 
39. ^ "http://www.rankprize.org/news1.html". http://www.rankprize.org/news1.html. 

[3] http://www.vdma.org/wps/portal/Home/en/Branchen/O/OEA/?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/vdma/Home/en/Branchen/O/OEA

External links

• Donal Bradley personal page at Imperial College London
• Centre for Plastic Electronics at Imperial College London
• Molecular Vision
• Cambridge Display Technology ltd
• Solar Press

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