Jonathan C. Knight’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Jonathan C. Knight, FRS (born 1964, in Lusaka) is a British physicist. He is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) for the University of Bath where he has been Professor in the Department of Physics since 2000, and served as Head of Department. From 2005 to 2008, he was founding Director of the University’s Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials.

Education

Knight studied at the University of Cape Town where he obtained his B.Sc (Hons), M.Sc. and PhD. His doctoral thesis was on whispering gallery mode microlasers. He did postdoctoral research at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris, 1994–1995) and at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (University of Southampton, 1995–1996).

Research

Knight is interested in the behaviour of light in microstructured materials, and in the physics of optical fibres. Working with Russell and Tim Birks, he designed, fabricated and demonstrated a number of novel forms of optical fibre waveguide with previously unobtainable characteristics. This work has led to a range of outcomes including the commercialisation of a new form of light source (supercontinuum), high power short pulse laser delivery through fibre, and applications in quantum and atomic physics. Belardi and Knight proposed the hollow-core “nested-ring” design for photonic fibres, at the beginning of 2014. Together with William Wadsworth, Knight co-created a new kind of laser capable of pulsed and continuous mid-infrared (IR) emission between 3.1 and 3.2 microns, a spectral range that has long presented a major challenge for laser developers.

Awards and recognition

• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 2019. “Distinguished scientists elected as Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society, 16 April 2019”
• Rank Prize Funds Optoelectronics Prize, 2018, “For the invention and realisation of photonic crystal fibres.” Physics Professors Tim Birks and Jonathan Knight have received The Rank Prize for Optoelectonics 2018 for their work on photonic crystal fibres. The pair were reunited with former colleague Professor Philip Russell, who now works in Germany, at an awards ceremony in London on Monday 12 February where each received a £30,000 prize for their ground-breaking work.
• Institute of Physics Optics and Photonics Division Prize, 2012
• Fellow of Optical Society of America, 2011, For pioneering development of the photonic crystal fiber and particularly its application in nonlinear frequency conversion and supercontinuum generation.
• Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, 2005/2006

Selected publications

• Yu, F.; Wadsworth, W.J.; Knight, J.C. (2012). “Low loss silica hollow-core fibers for 3-4 μm spectral region” (PDF). Optics Express. 20 (10): 11153–8. doi:10.1364/OE.20.011153. PMID 22565738.
• Stone, J. M.; Knight, J. C. (2008). “Visibly “white” light generation in uniform photonic crystal fiber using a microchip laser”. Optics Express. 16 (4): 2670–2675. doi:10.1364/OE.16.002670.

• Knight, J. C. (2003). “Photonic crystal fibres”. Nature. 424 (6950): 847–851. doi:10.1038/nature01940. PMID 12917699.
• Knight, J. C.; Russel, P. St. J. (2002). “New ways to guide light”. Science. 296 (5566): 276–277. doi:10.1126/science.1070033. PMID 11951025.

• Knight, J. C.; Broeng, J.; Birks, T. A.; Russell, P. St.J. (1998). “Photonic band gap guidance in optical fibers”. Science. 282 (5393): 1476–1478. doi:10.1126/science.282.5393.1476.
• Knight, J. C.; Cheung, G.; Jacques, F.; Birks, T. A. (1997). “Phase-matched excitation of whispering-gallery-mode resonances by a fiber taper”. Optics Letters. 22 (15): 1129–1131. doi:10.1364/OL.22.001129.

• Knight, J. C.; Birks, T. A.; Russell, P. St. J.; Atkin, D. M. (1996). “All-silica single-mode optical fiber with photonic crystal cladding”. Optics Letters. 21 (19): 1547–9. doi:10.1364/OL.21.001547. PMID 19881720.