Prof Nigel Copner PhD Laser Physics

I completed my BSc Physics honours at Reading University in 1988, with the highest First-Class honours, and subsequently obtained my PhD in Laser Physics from Swansea University in 1992. Since April 2023 I have lead for the Engineering Unit and more recently have also been appointed Head of the Business School at Aberystwyth University (AU).  

As Head of Research at the University of South Wales (USW) I drove the REF 2021 submission for our Faculty, (four UoA submissions), while also being the REF lead for General Engineering, B12. This alerted me to areas that the Faculty needed to improve on, including that only a third of staff undertook any research. Alongside gender balance I put in place guidance to reverse decline in research and through KPI dissemination ensured the allocation of sufficient research time. By working closely with the researchers in the Faculty, we achieved our best REF result in 2021 across the four submitted UoAs and increasing the QR income form £250k to £960k per year. In our own B12 UoA we were judged to have had twelve four-star of which 7 were believed to be from my research.

I have an extensive patent portfolio (>50) generated during my successful career in Silicon Valley working at JDS Uniphase (Senior Manager, San Jose), DERA (Research Fellow, Malvern), Renishaw and through my work in academia. Many of my key older patents have been commercially exploited generating > $50M/year of revenue. The optical switch (US2001006568) patent is currently the biggest selling opto-mechanical switch on the market as it provides key switching functionality without the manufacturing and operating tolerances. The athermal and revolutionary dispersion-less interleaver, (US2002154314, US2002171908), dominates the market and also forms the basis of the new DPSK/DQPSK product lines. In addition, my innovative approach to frequency doubling (US2004131093) forms the basis of JDS Uniphase’s lifescience blue note laser which has been their biggest selling new life science laser product. More recently my patents in tuneable lasers, vibration free interferometry and efficient OLED lighting have been assigned to Renishaw, NPL and Lomax respectively with a view to commercialisation in the near future.

Within academia, I have initiated and led multiple research projects as PI since 2010 totalling £25m with £15m allocated to my research nearly all based around new photonic innovations helping to secure in excess of 50 patents..

Additionally, there are numerous smaller grants such as current work with UKIERI grant with India worth £60k, and various smart type awards from the Welsh Government. At Aberystwyth we have recently secured £1M from EPSRC/BBSRC to research and develop a novel TB detector which can sense virus at the point of care (or at the point of taking the sample) with similar accuracies to PCR. This Project is due to start in January 2025. Also, recently with Swansea we have won £250k from the Adventurous Manufacturing EPSRC call to fund a Project to research novel ways of creating low-cost high silicon steel. If successful all generators and motors would see efficiency gains of up to 10% impacting our carbon footprint. The recent VISTA Project allowed us to fund 30 companies within Blaenau Gwent with grants from £20k to £60k with a view to providing a step change in the companies’ productivity. The networking events themselves provided substantial mutual benefits with many companies now working together.