Brian Corbett received B.A.Mod degrees in Experimental Physics and in Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin, Master of Science from Trinity College Dublin, and M. Eng. Sc. from University College Cork. He is principal investigator in III-V materials and devices at Tyndall National Institute Cork, Ireland leading a group of 16 staff, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students, developing semiconductor devices based on InP, GaN and GaAs.  

He has 35 years of experience in the design, fabrication and testing of III-V material structures for photonic applications. These are primarily photonic devices used in communications, sensing and data storage covering wavelengths from the infrared to the ultraviolet. The group developed many useful devices by structuring the material. The work has been used by many companies including Eblana Photonics (Dublin) in their ‘discrete mode’ lasers, Firecomms (Cork) in their resonant cavity LEDs and Infiniled (Cork) in their efficient microLEDs, subsequently acquired by Meta. The recent research focus is on the use of micro-transfer-printing to heterogeneously integrate multiple disparate components on a substrate. This enables the realisation of powerful photonic integrated circuits using intimate integration and miniature electronic, RF, piezo and photonic circuits with larger sized components. He has been an active participant in many collaborative projects funded by the European Union where he has coordinated four. He has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and 5 granted patents. He was awarded the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award in 2013 and in 2021, the Institute of Physics Katharine Burr Blodgett Medal and Prize for his contributions to industry.