Rate My Professor Edmund Linfield

Professor Edmund Linfield is Chair of Terahertz Electronics in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds, where he also serves as Director of Research and Innovation. He earned his BA Honours in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 1986 and his PhD from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Following his doctorate, Linfield held a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship at the Cavendish Laboratory from 1991 to 1997 before joining the University of Leeds. Appointed as the first Director of the Bragg Centre for Materials Research in 2019, he leads efforts in advanced materials research, including contributions to the Henry Royce Institute as an Academic Champion for the Atoms to Devices programme.

Linfield's early research integrated molecular beam epitaxial growth with focused ion beam lithography to fabricate mesoscopic electronic devices. From the late 1990s, his work shifted to terahertz technologies, pioneering broadband terahertz sources and their applications in imaging dental tissue and skin carcinomas. Over the last two decades, he has advanced terahertz quantum cascade lasers through molecular beam epitaxy growth, device fabrication, and applications, with his team achieving the first demonstration in 2002 and holding records for the highest reported output powers internationally. These lasers are supplied to numerous national and international laboratories. Key achievements include developing the world's most powerful terahertz laser chip in 2014 and contributions to fusion power plant designs and semiconductor consortia. Linfield received the IET Faraday Medal in 2014 jointly with Professor Giles Davies for pioneering terahertz research and the EPSRC Dream Fellowship in 2012. With over 1,000 publications and more than 28,000 citations, notable works include 'Terahertz spectroscopy of explosives and drugs' (Materials Today, 2008) and the '2023 Terahertz Science and Technology Roadmap'. His influence extends to public lectures, Royal Society exhibitions, and editorial roles in terahertz science.