| Authorised form of name | Cockayne; David John Hugh (1942 - 2010) |
| Dates | 1942 - 2010 |
| Place of birth | London |
| Date of birth | 19/03/1942 |
| Date of death | 22/12/2010 |
| Occupation | Materials scientist |
| Activity | Education:
Second of three children. His father was a policeman. The family emigrated to Melbourne when David was eight.
First class B.Sc in Science, Melbourne (1964); stayed on to carry out research for his MSc with professors John Cowley, Alex Moodie and Peter Goodman on the propagation of electrons through thin crystals
Career:
Professor of Physics, University of Sydney, and Professor-elect in the Physical Examination of Materials, University of Oxford
Built up an important research base at Sydney University In the late 1950s and 60s; pioneering advances were made in the study of the interior structures of crystals by passing high-energy electrons through thin foils in an electron microscope. Made major contributions to this technique, enabling the secrets of the microscopic world to be revealed at high resolution.
Professors John Cowley and Alex Moodie had developed a theory for the dependence of the intensity of the transmitted electron beam on its direction. Cockayne carried out the first experimental test of this theory in a specially designed high-precision electron scattering (diffraction) camera, and obtained results in agreement with the theory.
Department of metallurgy, University of Oxford to carry out research towards a DPhil supervised by Mike Whelan (1966). The object of the research was to improve the resolution of a previously developed method of studying the nature of defects in crystals, called dislocations, which control the mechanical properties of crystalline materials. The result was the development in 1969 with Ian Ray and Whelan of the weak beam technique of dark field electron microscopy, which improved markedly the resolution at which dislocations could be studied.
This technique revealed that in some materials (for example, semiconductors and metals such as copper and silver), the defects actually consist of two dislocations. The application of the technique greatly advanced our understanding of the structure and properties of crystal defects in many materials, and is still widely used today.
Returned to Sydney University in 1974 as director of the electron microscopy unit. He built up an important research base, which was absorbed into the Australian Key Centre of Microscopy and Analysis which he founded and directed at Sydney University. With David McKenzie he developed a high-precision electron diffraction technique within an electron microscope to study the structure of amorphous materials. This was used to prove the existence of local diamond-like structures in thin films of certain amorphous carbons, and the refinement of the structure of the C70 molecule.
Returned in 2000 to Oxford University as professor in the physical examination of materials and built up an outstanding electron microscopy group. He followed up studies started in Sydney on how the strain of nanometer-sized crystals (quantum dots) of semiconductor alloys is relieved by segregation of one of the alloy constituents to the surface. This affects their electronic properties. Another highlight was the success of determining accurately the positions of dopant atoms at the interface of the thin amorphous films between adjacent crystalline grains in polycrystalline silicon nitride ceramic. These dopant atoms control properties such as brittleness. They found for the first time that the crystal imposes its periodicity upon the adjacent few atomic layers of the amorphous film.
One of Cockayne's colleagues wrote that he made "the impossible possible". Honoured in 2008 with the Massey medal jointly awarded by the UK and Australian Institutes of Physics. In Australia he initiated the successful Microscopes on the Move programme in which an adapted scanning electron microscope could be transported to schools for hands-on operation. With Angus Kirkland he developed a UK programme in which a scanning electron microscope in Oxford can be remotely controlled by schools.
Cockayne was the editor or sat on the editorial boards of a number of journals. He generously gave his time to students and colleagues, and was a much sought-after lecturer. At the International Microscope Congress in Sapporo in 2006 he gave a brilliant address in the presence of the Japanese emperor, who studied fish scales by electron microscopy as a hobby.
Died from lung cancer aged 68
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 13/05/1999 |
| Age at election | 57 |
| Relationships | Married Jean (1967); three children, Sophie, Tamsin and James |
| OtherInfo | Sources:
Obituary in 'The Guardian', 3 March 2011 |
| Code | NA2343 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/000900 | Cockayne, David John Hugh | 1999 |
| EC/1999/09 | Cockayne, David John Hugh: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1996 |