| Citation | Shanks has made important contributions to the development of materials for, and methods of construction of, liquid crystal displays. Amongst his achievements are non multiplexed addressing methods with application to liquid crystal oscilloscopes, analogue and full circular radar displays. Liquid crystal storage oscilloscopes are now in commercial production, under licence, in the U.K.. As a result of his studies and development of methods of control of fundamental hydrodynamic instabilities in the behaviour of twisted nematic liquid crystals switched up to 100 hertz, he devised methods of making large area switchable colour filters and applied these to make field sequential colour C.R.T. displays. These are now being manufactured under licence in the U.S.A. His other inventions include a prototype electronic method of producing 3D television pictures in compatible form and a novel electronic pattern generator which is in production in the U.K. and is used by textile and carpet manufacturers. Shanks has published about 30 scientific papers and has filed 35 patent specifications on his inventions. In May 1982 he joined Unilever Research to set up and lead a team in the field of bio-sensors. |