Rate My Professor Rachel Oliver

Professor Rachel Oliver is Professor of Materials Science in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, where she serves as Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride. She earned her MEng and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the characterization and exploitation of nanoscale structures in gallium nitride (GaN)-based materials to enhance the performance of GaN-based electronic and optoelectronic devices. This encompasses nitride optoelectronic devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and single photon sources based on InGaN quantum dots, as well as nitride electronic devices such as transistors suited for high-frequency, high-voltage, and high-temperature applications. Oliver develops novel nitride materials like zincblende GaN and porous GaN, and advances characterization techniques including atom-probe tomography, scanning capacitance microscopy, and time-resolved cathodoluminescence. She is Chief Scientific Officer of the spinout company Poro Technologies.

In teaching, she delivers lectures on Device Materials (Part IA), Atomic Force Microscopy (Part II), and Materials for Optoelectronic Devices (Part III), and serves on the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy Teaching Committee. As a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, she benefits from and supports the university's flexible working policies aligned with Athena Swan commitments. Her achievements include the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2025 New Year Honours List, Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), and a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies for Porous GaN: An emerging materials platform for electronics and optoelectronics. Key publications feature Massabuau et al., 'Dislocations as channels for the fabrication of sub-surface porous GaN by electrochemical etching' (APL Materials, 2020); Lee et al., 'Investigation of stacking faults in MOVPE-grown zincblende GaN by XRD and TEM' (Journal of Applied Physics, 2019); Lim et al., 'Encapsulation of methylammonium lead bromide perovskite in nanoporous GaN' (APL Materials, 2019); Wang et al., 'Polarisation-controlled single photon emission at high temperatures from InGaN quantum dots' (Nanoscale, 2017); and Zhu et al., 'Wafer-scale Fabrication of Non-Polar Mesoporous GaN Distributed Bragg Reflectors via Electrochemical Porosification' (Scientific Reports, 2017). Among her highly cited works are 'Advances in AFM for the electrical characterization of semiconductors' (Reports on Progress in Physics, 2008) and 'Efficient light-emitting diodes from mixed-dimensional perovskites on a fluoride interface' (Nature Electronics, 2020).