Professor Alf Adams
Professor Alf Adams FRS is a well-known British physicist who invented the strained-layer quantum-well laser, considered to be one of the top ten greatest UK scientific breakthroughs of all time.
It powers the internet, CDs, DVDs, supermarket checkouts and billions of other devices.
Professor Alfred Adams
Professor Emeritus
Biography
After spending two years at the University of Karlsruhe studying the electrical and thermal transport properties of molecular crystals, Alf Adams joined Surrey in 1967.
Life timeline
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1967
Professor Alf Adams joins the University of Surrey.
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1980
Takes a sabbatical to work on semiconductor lasers at the Toyko Institute of Technology in Japan.
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1986
Along with his team, he proposed that the electronic band structure of quantum-well lasers could be significantly improved by deliberately growing the active layer in a state of strain.
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1995
Awarded the Duddell Medal and Prize.
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1996
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
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2012
He gives the inaugural lecture at the Royal Society, for the Alf Adams lecture series, established to showcase the University of Surrey's ground-breaking research.
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2014
Awarded the Rank Prize for Optoelectronics for his work on strained-layer quantum well lasers.
In March, he was subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Professor Jim Al-Khalili's The Life Scientific.
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2015
Since retirement from the University of Surrey, he holds the position of emeritus professor.
