User:Farmanby

GHB (Robin) Thompson
George Horace Brook Thompson, or Robin to friends and colleagues, was born on 02 March 1928 and is a British physicist and pioneer in the field of semiconductor lasers.

Robin's contributions to the understanding of semiconductor lasers over the past sixty years enabled Standard Telecommunications Laboratories (STL), an engineering company which was based in Harlow, UK, and its parent company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC), to become an international leader in the field of optical fibre communications.

Early Life and Education
Robin was born on 02 March 1928, in Bromley, Kent, United Kingdom, to Marjorie Thompson (née Sherrard), and Robert Denton Thompson, an Anglican Vicar. After leaving Sedbergh School, Robin attended Queen's College, University of Cambridge, UK and graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences Tripos in 1949. Later in 1967, Robin received a D.Phil on semi conductor lasers from the University of Oxford, UK.

Notable Achievements and Awards

 * Intellectual property of and contributions to 110 papers and 40 patents
 * 1970 - inventor of the five-layer separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) which today forms the structural basis for 95% of all laser diodes
 * 1979 - awarded J.J Thomson Award for the publication "Deep proton isolated lasers and proton range data for InP and GaSb"
 * 1980 - author of the book The Physics of Semiconductor Laser Devices
 * 1981 - awarded J.J Thomson Award for the publication "Temperature dependence of threshold current in (GaIn) (AsP) DH lasers at 1.3 and 1.5μm wavelength"
 * 1992 - awarded Institute of Engineering and Technology J J Thomson Medal for Electronics

Personal Life
Robin shares his life with his wife Rosaleen, his six children and fourteen grandchildren. His hobbies include skiing, swimming, hill walking and gardening.