Brian Ridley Explained

Brian Ridley
Birth Date:	1931 3, df=yes
Birth Place:	Newcastle Upon Tyne, England
Known For:	Ridley–Watkins–Hilsum theory
Fields:	solid-state physics semiconductor theory
Workplaces:	University of Essex
Alma Mater:	University of Durham

Brian Kidd Ridley (born 2 March 1931) is a British solid-state physicist specialising in semiconductor theory. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Essex.^[1]

Education

Ridley was educated at the University of Durham.^[2] He received a BSc degree in physics in 1953 and completed his doctoral studies in 1957.^[3]

Career

Ridley began his career as a research physicist in the solid-state physics division of the Mullard Research Laboratories in Redhill, Surrey (1956–1964). In 1964, he joined the University of Essex as a lecturer in physics, later becoming a senior lecturer (1967), reader (1971) and finally professor of physics (1984), before retiring in 2008. He has held distinguished visiting professorial appointments at Cornell University (1967) and the Danish Technical University (1969), and has held research appointments at Princeton, Stanford, Lund, Santa Barbara, Oregon, and Eindhoven.^[4]

Research

Ridley has conducted work on negative differential resistance (NDR), instabilities and hot-electron transport in semiconductors. In the early 1960s, he jointly discovered the electron transfer mechanism (Ridley–Watkins–Hilsum effect) which underlies microwave generation in Gunn diodes, and he was the first to discover the impurity barrier mechanism for NDR, and to demonstrate its existence in germanium. He was also the first to describe the consequences of NDR instabilities in terms of propagating dipole domains and current filaments. The existence of these nonlinear entities has been verified in a wide variety of solids. His work on acoustoelectric instabilities led to his invention of the microsonic analogue of the laser. He has made original contributions to the theory of electron transitions in solids, particularly impurity scattering and multiphonon processes. This work is the subject of his monograph Quantum Processes in Semiconductors, widely used as a reference text.

He wrote three popular books, Time, Space and Things (1976), which has been translated into multiple languages, The Physical Environment (1979) and On Science (2001).

Awards and honours

Ridley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1994.^[5] In 2001, the Institute of Physics awarded him the Dirac Medal in recognition of his four-decade long influence on the semiconductor theory.^{[6] [7]}

Selected works

Textbooks

• Book: Ridley, B.K. . Hybrid phonons in nanostructures . Oxford University Press . Oxford, United Kingdom . 2017 . 978-0-19-878836-2 .
• Book: Ridley, B. K. . Quantum processes in semiconductors . Oxford University Press . Oxford . 1999 . 0-19-850579-5 .
• Book: Ridley, B. K. . Electrons and Phonons in Semiconductor Multilayers . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 1996 . 978-0-511-52934-4 .

Books

• Book: Ridley, B. K. . Reforming science: beyond belief . Andrews UK Limited . Exeter . 2016 . 978-1-84540-194-8 .
• Book: Ridley, B. K. . On Science . Taylor & Francis . Thinking in Action . 2001 . 978-1-134-53350-3 .
• Book: Ridley, B. K. . Time, space, and things . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 1976 . 978-0-521-48486-2 . registration .
• Book: Ridley, B. K. . The physical environment . registration . Ellis Horwood Halsted Press . Chicester . 1979 . 0-85312-142-7 .

Research papers

• Ridley . B.K. . The electron-phonon interaction in quasi-two-dimensional semiconductor quantum-well structures . Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics . IOP Publishing . 15 . 28 . 1982 . 0022-3719 . 10.1088/0022-3719/15/28/021 . 5899–5917 . 1982JPhC...15.5899R .
• Ridley . B.K. . Specific Negative Resistance in Solids . Proceedings of the Physical Society . IOP Publishing . 82 . 6 . 1963 . 0370-1328 . 10.1088/0370-1328/82/6/315 . 954–966 . 1963PPS....82..954R .
• Ridley . B.K. . Watkins . T.B. . The Possibility of Negative Resistance Effects in Semiconductors . Proceedings of the Physical Society . IOP Publishing . 78 . 2 . 1961 . 0370-1328 . 10.1088/0370-1328/78/2/315 . 293–304 . 1961PPS....78..293R .

External links

• Homepage

Notes and References

1. Web site: Emeritus Professors - School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering . University of Essex . 14 December 2017.
2. Graduates . Durham Colleges Gazette, 1950-1953 . 4 . 25 . 3.
3. New Scientist . 7 May 1964 . 22. 390. 0262-4079. Reed Business Information . 380.
4. Web site: EC/1994/32: Ridley, Brian Kidd. The Royal Society. 13 December 2017. 21 June 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200621154651/https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28RefNo%3D%27EC%2F1994%2F32%27%29. dead.
5. Web site: Brian Ridley. Royal Society. London. One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." Web site: Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies . 16 December 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170710134855/https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ . 10 July 2017 . bot: unknown .
6. Web site: Physics . Institute of . Dirac medal recipients . Institute of Physics - For physics • For physicists • For all . 13 December 2017.
7. Institute Matters . Physics World . IOP Publishing . 13 . 12 . 2000 . 0953-8585 . 10.1088/2058-7058/13/12/44 . 55–62. free .