Rate My Professor Richard Blaikie

Richard Blaikie is an Emeritus Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Otago. He received his BSc (Hons) degree from the University of Otago in 1988 and his PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge in 1992. After completing his doctorate, he served as a visiting scientist for one year at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, where he investigated single-electron transport effects in semiconductor nanostructures. Returning to New Zealand in 1993, Blaikie took up a position in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Canterbury, advancing from lecturer to professor from 1994 to 2011. During this time, he was Deputy Director (2002–2008) and Director (2008–2011) of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. In 2011, he joined the University of Otago as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise), a role he held until his retirement in May 2025, becoming the university's longest-serving holder of that position.

Blaikie's research focuses on nanophotonics, including super-resolution optical lithography; plasmonics and related surface-wave phenomena; deep sub-wavelength optical field confinement for sensing, imaging, intense lighting, and transient luminous events such as red sprites; micro- and nano-fabrication technologies using optical and electron beam lithography; and electronic device engineering, encompassing single-electron logic and memory devices as well as novel nano-electronic devices. He has pioneered advancements in sub-wavelength optics, notably developing evanescent near-field optical nanolithography and achieving the world-first demonstration of sub-diffraction imaging using silver superlenses. Key publications include "Submicron imaging with a planar silver lens" (Applied Physics Letters, 2004), "Imaging through planar silver lenses in the optical near field" (Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, 2005), and recent works such as "Wetting of soap bubbles on topographic surfaces" (Journal of Colloid & Interface Science, 2025) and "Cascaded Raman lasing in a lithium tetraborate whispering gallery mode resonator" (Photonics Research, 2025). His contributions have earned him the Fellow of Optica (2015), Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (2011), Hector Memorial Medal (2013), Thomson Medal (2015), T. K. Sidey Medal (2001), and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Otago (2025). Blaikie has served as an editor for optics journals and delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture in 2017.