Jeremy Burroughes facts for kids

Jeremy Henley Burroughes (born August 1960) is a British physicist and engineer. He is famous for helping to create organic electronics. This field uses special materials like polymers (which are like plastics) and molecules to make electronic devices.

Jeremy Burroughes is the Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Display Technology. This company works on new ways to make screens using polymer light-emitting diodes, also known as OLEDs.

Learning and Degrees

Jeremy Burroughes studied at the University of Cambridge. He earned his PhD degree there in 1989. His research looked at how electricity moves through special organic materials used in electronic devices.

Amazing Discoveries

Early in his career, Jeremy Burroughes made a big discovery. He found that certain types of plastics, called conjugated polymers, could glow. They would light up when an electric current passed through them. This was a new kind of electroluminescence, which means "light from electricity."

This discovery was very important. It led to the start of Cambridge Display Technology. At this company, Burroughes has helped create many new technologies. One of the most exciting is the ability to print full-colour OLED displays directly. This means making bright, colourful screens for phones, TVs, and other devices.

Awards and Special Honours

In 2012, Jeremy Burroughes was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honour for scientists in the United Kingdom.

His election certificate explained why he was chosen:

Burroughes made important steps in the science and engineering of special plastics. These steps helped turn these materials from just research ideas into real products. His early work from Cambridge in 1988 and 1990 helped define this whole area of science. As Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Display Technology, he helped turn early ideas into technology that could be made in factories. He did this by creating new device designs, new materials, and new ways to make things, like printing full-colour LED displays. This engineering work also helped us understand more about how these devices work.