A SENIOR academic at the University of Hull has paid tribute to the pioneering chemist who kick-started a revolution in television.
Hull scientist Professor George Gray has died at the age of 86.
His research led to the creation of LCD display screens, paving the way for everything from smartphones to flat-screen TVs.
Dr Mike Hird, a current member of the university's liquid crystals research group, worked with Professor Gray before his retirement.
He described the chemist as a wonderful "friend and colleague".
Dr Hird said: "All those who knew George will remember him as a friend and colleague to so many, young and old, within our community.
"We are forever grateful to George for his seminal contributions to the field and will greatly miss his immense knowledge, his enthusiasm for science, his warmth and love of life."
The professor's breakthrough happened 40 years ago, when he created a class of compounds called cyanobiphenyls.
They form stable liquid crystals at room temperature.
His experiments were sparked by technology minister John Stonehouse, who was concerned Britain spent too much money buying in screens from abroad and sought a homegrown alternative.
Scientists began working with liquid crystals but found they were unstable.
Professor Gray's approach was admired by defence scientist Cyril Hilsum and, in 1970, the university won a Ministry of Defence contract to develop the materials used in LCD displays.
Alongside physicist Peter Raynes, he created the chemicals in today's screens.
By 1978, he had become Professor of Organic Chemistry at the university.
LCD displays are now the most popular form of TV screen.
Sales of the format surpassed the older, larger CRT screens in 2007.
In 2008, 100 million LCD TV screens were expected to be sold.
Gray left Hull in the early 1990s to work as a research co-ordinator for pharmaceutical company Merck and was a visiting professor at the University of Southampton.
He also consulted for the Defence Evaluation Research Agency.
His research was internationally applauded.
The professor was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1983 and got a CBE in 1991.
He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1989.
His work won the University of Hull the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1979 and Hull Trains named one of its engines the Professor George Gray in 2005.
Other awards were a Rank Prize for Opto-electronics in 1980, a gold medallist of the Royal Society in 1987 and the Kyoto Laureate in Advanced Technology in 1995 – the eastern world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Professor Gray died in Poole on Sunday, May 12.
He is survived by two daughters.
