Alf Adams
| Alf Adams | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Alfred Rodney Adams |
| Born | 11 November 1939 |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | University of Leicester (BSc, PhD, DSc) |
| Thesis | The electrical and optical properties of ortho-rhombic sulphur crystals (1964) |
| Doctoral advisor | Walter Eric Spear |
| Known for | Strained quantum-well lasers |
| Notable awards | FRS (1996) |
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Website www |
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Alfred ("Alf") Rodney Adams, FRS (born 1939) is a British physicist who invented the strained-layer quantum-well laser. Most modern homes will have several of these devices in their homes in all types of electronic equipment.
He served as a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, where he headed the Optoelectronic Materials and Devices Research Group. He is now retired and holds the position of emeritus professor. He was awarded the Duddell Medal and Prize in 1995, and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996. In 2014 he was awarded the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics for his pioneering work on strained-layer laser structures.
Adams was born to a non-academic family. His grandmother had died from tuberculosis and his father was born with TB thus being excused from school on medical grounds, before working as cobbler, boxer and gym owner. Adams' mother left school at the age of 12. Adams was evacuated from Hadleigh, Essex during The Blitz in World War II. After taking his eleven-plus exam he attended the local technical school where he represented Southeast Essex at both football and cricket.
He attended University of Leicester to study physics, in part because he didn't have the foreign language qualifications demanded by most other universities. He also completed his PhD at Leicester with Professor Walter Eric Spear on Orthorhombic crystal systems, before doing postdoctoral research in Physics at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, where he met and married his wife Helga.
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