Honorary fellows: Professor Sir Michael Pepper - University College London

For his outstanding contributions to the field of semiconductor nanoelectronics.

Michael Pepper has made exceptional contributions to both basic and applied physics.  By using Silicon and Gallium Arsenide devices he was the first to recognize the new physics which would emerge from dimensionality transitions and the importance of converting two dimensions into one and then one into zero which created the field of semiconductor nanoelectronics.

In early work he showed that it was possible to use these structures to explore how electrons move in an environment dominated by disorder and localisations. A collaborator in the work which resulted in the discovery of the quantum hall effect he then invented devices allowing the electron gas to be manipulated to form a one-dimensional system and then a zero dimensional quantum dot. These enabled observation of a range of quantum phenomena and creation of the new field of semiconductor nanoelectronics which is now pursued world-wide.

Pepper was the first Managing Director of Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Cambridge Research Laboratory. He created a strategy which has resulted in the company leading the development of quantum communications, where security is based on the laws of quantum mechanics. He also raised venture capital finance and co-led a spin out of a new company TeraView which is commercialising terahertz technology and is very successful in applying imaging and spectroscopy to industrial process control, security and cancer imaging.