Kate Cummins

Take the Airfix approach to low-carbon building technologies

Opinion

An ’assembly sheet’ is vital to ensure that low-carbon technologies work together in an optimised way, says Dr Geoff Williams of Thorn Lighting

When I was a boy, I painstakingly brought Airfix model aircraft kits to life. One of the lessons I learned was that following the assembly sheet was the quickest way to success and ensured that you didn’t have your engines on back to front.

I am now consumed by a slightly more sophisticated passion developing the lighting of the future. Using printable electronics, my team is developing solid-state organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that are capable of running on a 5VDC battery at a fraction of the energy usage of incandescent light bulbs.

18 geoff williams

Dr Geoff Williams
OLED group leader Thorn Lighting

Education
1987-1990 PhD adaptive liquid crystal optics, University of Durham
1986-1987 MSc optoelectronics and laser devices, University of St Andrews
1979-1982 BSc applied physics, University of Hull
Career
1982 Acoustic development engineer, GEC Information Systems
1991 Senior research assistant, University of Durham
1998 Electron-optics sector leader, Philips Display Components
2000 Programme manager, Thorn Lighting
2007 OLED group leader, Thorn Lighting. Thorn, CDT and Durham formed the Project
TOPLESS consortium to investigate the mass commercialisation of PLED lighting. Williams is now heading up the TSB-funded Project TOPDRAWER solid-state lighting R&D project