51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Professor Donal Bradley, a pioneering materials physicist whose discoveries helped establish the field of plastic electronics, has returned to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø as Professor of Materials Physics and Device Engineering in the Department of Materials.

Professor Bradley, CBE, FRS first joined 51³Ô¹ÏÍø as a Physics undergraduate in the early 1980s. After completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge and holding academic positions at Cambridge and the University of Sheffield, he returned to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø as Professor of Solid-State Physics in 2000. 

During his 15 years at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, he founded the Centre for Plastic Electronics and served as Head of the Department of Physics, Faculty Deputy Principal (Natural Sciences) and Vice-Provost for Research. He subsequently moved to the University of Oxford, before taking on leadership roles at KAUST and NEOM in Saudi Arabia. 

“It’s been quite a while since I was last working here, but I have stayed in touch and still know a great many people across the College, so it is a homecoming in many ways,” said Professor Bradley. “A new department (Materials) and new faculty (Engineering) provide something different, which is nice, and I am looking forward to getting to know many new colleagues and their interests to see how I can best contribute to the College’s ongoing success.” 

Scientific impact

In 1989, Professor Bradley co-invented conjugated polymer electroluminescence, a breakthrough that helped establish the field of plastic electronics and paved the way for new generations of lightweight, flexible electronic and light-emitting devices. 

His contributions to science, engineering and international collaboration have been recognised through numerous accolades, including Fellowship of the Royal Society and Fellowship of the US National Academy of Inventors. He has also been recognised as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in Materials, Physics and Cross-Field. 

Alongside his academic contributions, he has extensive experience in translating research into applications, with more than 30 patents and several spin-out companies founded during his career. 

A new chapter in Materials research 

At the Department of Materials, Professor Bradley will continue his work on functional materials and devices for electronic, optoelectronic and photonic applications. 

His work will explore how materials can improve the energy efficiency, colour performance, manufacturability and form factors of future electronic and photonic devices. He is also interested in emerging areas including polariton structures and molecular ordering for controlling polarisation. 

“I enjoy working collaboratively with colleagues from different disciplinary backgrounds, and across non-university research organisations and industry,” said Professor Bradley. “My research benefits from the different expertise, facilities and scales of activity this allows. Materials has key research infrastructure for deposition, processing, characterisation and imaging, and I am looking forward to working with these, with several projects already under consideration.” 

Professor Bradley sees materials research as central to developing technologies that can respond to challenges across energy, water, food, climate, health and data. 

He points to nitride-based semiconductors for lighting and organic semiconductors for displays as examples of how advances in materials can enable new technologies, and expects materials to continue to evolve as new needs emerge. 

“Materials is an underpinning, cross-cutting discipline, with advances in technology often linked to new and more optimised compositions, processing methods and characterisation techniques,” he said. 

“The College is well placed to address these complex challenges through its distributed network of materials research activities,” he added. “I am confident that there will be many notable outcomes in this space over the coming years.”