Rate My Professor Richard Carter

Richard Carter serves as Associate Professor in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, within the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences. He earned his MPhys degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2005, an MSc in photonics and opto-electronic devices from the Universities of St Andrews and Heriot-Watt in 2007, and a PhD from Heriot-Watt University in 2012 developing long period fibre gratings for environmental gas sensing. After completing his doctorate, he joined the high power laser applications group at Heriot-Watt as a research associate investigating laser-based production processes. In 2018, he was appointed Research Fellow (Lecturer) in the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, and promoted to Associate Professor in 2021 with teaching responsibilities in Physics and Mechanical Engineering.

His research specializations include precision laser manufacturing, optical system automation, and fibre optics. Recent projects encompass high power beam delivery with novel hollow core fibre optics, fibre optic environmental sensing, micro material processing such as machining, drilling, and welding, microwelding of highly dissimilar materials, robotics for aligning optical systems, and novel beamshaping techniques. Carter has received the Best Speaker award at IOP Young Researchers in Optics in 2009 and the John E. Marquis Award in 2022. He serves as Vice President of the Association of Industrial Laser Users and Chair of its External Engagement Board. Key publications feature 'A Two-Stage Learning Framework with a Beam Image Dataset for Automatic Laser Resonator Alignment' (Pattern Recognition, 2026), 'Direct laser interference patterning for scalable ultrashort-pulsed laser welding' (Materials Letters, 2025), '2μm Ho:YAG laser systems for short- and ultrashort-pulsed laser processing of infrared optical materials' (conference abstract, 2025), and 'A Standard Metal Preparation for Ultrashort Pulse Laser Metal-Optical Component Bonding' (conference abstract, 2025). He has delivered invited public lectures including 'Ultra-Short Pulse Welding of Dissimilar Materials' in 2025 and spoken at Laser World of Photonics in 2025.