Prof Russell Cowburn FRS
Professor of Experimental Physics
Biography
Prof Cowburn has research interests in nanotechnology and its application to magnetism, electronics, optics and healthcare. Before returning to Cambridge in 2010 he held positions at the CNRS Paris, University of Durham and Imperial College London. He is the founder of four spin-out companies and the inventor of the anti-counterfeiting technology ‘Laser Surface Authentication’. He has had over 60 patents granted and is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences. He is the winner of the 2003 GSK Westminster Medal and Prize, the 2006 Degussa Science to Business Award, the 2007 Hermes International Technology Award, the 2008 Institute of Physics Paterson Medal and Prize and the 2016 Royal Society Paterson Medal. He was one of the 2015 IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturers. He has held two ERC grants – an Advanced Investigator Grant and a Proof of Concept award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Research
My philosophy of research is to span a spectrum from basic physics through technology to commercialisation. I am interested in understanding how the properties of materials differ on the near-atomic scale compared to the ‘bulk’ (i.e. pieces of material of everyday sizes such as millimetres and centimetres). My aim is then to translate that new physics into real-world products which are cheaper, faster, stronger and lower in energy consumption.
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