Professor Peter Clarricoats CBE FREng FRS FIEEE HonFIET, April 1932 – January 2020
Published: Tue 4 Feb 2020
Professor Peter Clarricoats CBE FREng FRS died on Friday 17 January 2020 after a short illness.
Peter Clarricoats made major fundamental contributions as a microwave engineer in the fields of applied electromagnetics for microwave and optical waveguides, and microwave antenna feeds. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1983 and was awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015.
He was educated at Minchenden Grammar School and Imperial College London, receiving his PhD from the University of London in 1958. He started his academic career in 1959 at Queen’s University Belfast and was subsequently appointed as a Professor at the University of Leeds in 1963; in each case starting research groups in microwave engineering which still thrive today. In 1967, he moved to Queen Mary College (now Queen Mary University of London), founding the Electromagnetics and Antenna Group which went on to make significant contributions to antenna and microwave research.
Peter was also a pioneer of optical fibres, publishing one of the first monographs on this topic in 1975. He established the theory, which has since been widely used in the context of optical fibres, of electromagnetic propagation on dielectric and ferrite structures. In the course of this, he also discovered that such structures can, under some conditions, support ‘backward waves’ and that guides can propagate complex modes.
Over 40 years of his academic career, Professor Clarricoats had numerous notable achievements including pioneering designs for shaped reflectors, reconfigurable reflectors and especially corrugated horns for microwave antennas. The latter are now universally used in satellite ground stations and in spacecraft. Peter was one of the first to recognise the radical improvements which arise from the use of a corrugated horn antenna. He went on to publish what became standard reference texts on Corrugated Horns for Microwave Antennas, Microwave Horns and Feeds.
His personal research was recognised through many significant awards from the IEE (now IET) and IEEE where he received the highest honour from the IEEE Antenna Society (APS), The Distinguished Achievement Award in 2001. His contribution to microwaves in Europe was recognised through the European Microwave Association’s Microwave Prize in 1989 and the Outstanding Career Award in 2004.
Professor Clarricoats was vice-president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, from 1989 to 1991, and vice-president and treasurer of URSI (the International Union of Radio Science) from 1993 to 1999. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). He was awarded the CBE in 1996.
Peter worked with other leading figures to establish new journals and conferences. Perhaps the journal he was most proud of was the internationally renowned Electronic Letters, which remains one of the most successful technical publications of all time.
After he retired from his full-time post in 1997, Professor Clarricoats continued to supervise research and through his personal innovation developed a new compact horn design needed for satellites and spacecraft. In September 2015, he was awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Peter had sparkle, which together with his great intellect never left him and he will be greatly missed by the many Fellows and colleagues he mentored and encouraged throughout his career.