Professor David Thomson

Professor David J. Thomson (DJT) is a professorial fellow in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton. David holds a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and is pioneering research in the area of photonics for computing applications and LIDAR. He holds several research projects as PI and CI with funding totalling more than £10M. David leads a team of 12 RA’s and PhD students working on the design, fabrication and characterisation of novel photonics devices and circuits as well as their integration with electronic functionality.

David is world renowned for his work on high speed optical modulators. Notable achievements include the demonstration of the first 50Gbit/s optical modulator in silicon and the first frontend integration of a silicon optical modulator with BiCMOS electronics and the first all silicon modulator integrated with CMOS drive electronics that can operate at speeds of 100Gbaud and beyond. David has authored more than 85 journal papers, 185 conference publications (with more than 90 invited contributions) and has filed 18 patents. David has sat on numerous conference committees including SPIE Photonics West (Optical interconnects) and IEEE Group IV Photonics.