Professor Friend is Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge where he leads the Optoelectronics Group in the Cavendish Laboratory. (The Cavendish Professorship, founded in 1871, is a prestigious professorship in physics of the University of Cambridge. Physicists of great eminence have held this professorship. To name a few - James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Rayleigh, J. J. Thomson, Lord Rutherford, William Lawrence Brag and Sam Edwards – who visited NCL in 1997.) He is also one of the Principal Investigators in the new Cambridge-based Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) on Nanotechnology.

  Prof Sir Richard Friend is a highly decorated and renowned materials physicist who has made seminal contributions to the physics and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors. His research group has shown that semiconductor polymers can be processed to form high-performing semiconductor devices. His research group was the first to demonstrate using polymers clean operation of field-effect transistors (1988), light-emitting diodes (1990), efficient photovoltaic diodes (1995), optically-pumped lasing (1996), and directly-printed polymer transistor circuits (2000). This work has revolutionized the understanding of the electronic properties of molecular semiconductors, which are now recognized to be very suitable for use in semiconductor devices. It has also made possible new applications for semiconductors, particularly for solid-state light-emitting displays using polymer light-emitting diodes. Products based on these discoveries are now in the market. Prof Friend has developed this work both within the University of Cambridge and also through the formation of two companies, Cambridge Display Technology (originally founded in 1992, today employs more than 100 people in the Cambridge area and Huntingdon and has licensed its technology to several major electronics manufacturers) and Plastic Logic (founded in 2000 and aims to develop directly-printed polymer transistor circuits). Prof Friend is Chief Scientist at Cambridge Display Technology Ltd. Prof Friend is Chief Scientist and Director at Plastic Logic Ltd – a company that he co-founded with colleagues.

  Professor Friend has over 600 publications and more than 20 patents. He was identified by ISI as the most cited UK based scientist working in the physical sciences for the decade 1990-1999. Prof Friend has received several honors and awards. Prof Friends is a Fellow of Royal Society of London (1993), Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering (2002) and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2003). He has been presented with the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London (1998), Silver Medal, Royal Academy of Engineering, London (2002), Faraday Medal of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (2003) and Gold Medal of the European Materials Research Society (2003). Professor Friend was knighted for "Services to Physics" in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, 2003.

  Prof Friends is married, has two daughters and lives in Cambridge, UK.