Professor Robert Thomson FREng 

Professor of Photonics, Heriot-Watt University 

Professor Robert Thomson is the inventor of the ultrafast laser-inscribed 3D waveguide fan-out, which facilitates low-loss interconnection of multicore optical fibres to planar devices. He also invented the ‘integrated photonic lantern’ – a 3D-integrated waveguide mode multiplexing device that facilitates low-loss coupling to and from few-mode fibres. These mode manipulation devices enable state-of-the-art applications, including ultra-high bandwidth telecommunications exploiting space-division multiplexing, as well as advanced fibre sensing in areas such as astro photonics and biomedical photonics.