John Wickham Steeds

Research

Steeds is best known for his investigations of the microstructure of materials using electron microscopy and convergent-beam electron diffraction. Early in his career, he produced seminal work on dislocation arrangements in deformed copper crystals, which is a basis for the more recent theories of work hardening. His monograph on anisotropic elasticity theory of dislocations is a standard reference. He has led a sophisticated research effort to make, from image plane diffraction analysis ("real-space crystallography") and convergent-beam diffraction, a complete system for crystallographic structure determination in the electron microscope. He is recognised as a world expert in this technique. In 1996, he received the Holweck Medal, awarded jointly by the Institute of Physics and Société Française de Physique.