Royal Society Award for Materials Professor

Professor Neil Alford MBE FREng winner of the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company Prize 2016

Professor Neil Alford MBE FREng was awarded the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company Prize 2016.

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Professor Neil Alford MBE FREng for being awarded the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company 2016 for his outstanding contributions to materials research with benefit to society, especially the development of ultra-low-loss microwave dielectrics for communications.

Neil says: “I am absolutely delighted and honoured to receive this award. It’s a reflection of the importance of Materials Science and it’s also a tribute to the extraordinary people I have worked with over the years.”

In 2011  he and colleagues Mark Oxborrow and Jon Breeze discovered that a Bragg resonator with sapphire plates of aperiodic thickness could achieve an extraordinarily high Q factor for the resonator. This led them to the discovery that it was possible to construct a MASER operating at room temperature and in the earth's magnetic field. 

Technology transfer is a key component of the work undertaken by his group and collaborations with industry are encouraged and actively pursued. In January 2007 he and his research group moved to Imperial College. In 2008 he was awarded the Griffith Prize and Medal. He has served as Head of the Department of Materials and Vice-Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Engineering; he is currently the Associate Provost for Academic Planning.  In 2013 he was awarded the MBE for services to Engineering.