An Interview with Prof David Brotherton-Ratcliffe – LaserCraft, Geola and Much More

Prof David Brotherton-Ratcliffe’s work in applied optics has to a large extent mirrored the fortunes of holography.

Having founded and managed LaserCraft in London in 1982, whilst completing a PhD in Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion, he moved to Australia in 1985. After working for 4-5 years as a research fellow in Fusion Physics at Flinders University in Adelaide he founded Australian Holographics Pty in 1989, making large format holograms for commercial advertising serving the Australasian market. In 1991, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, he founded General Optics Pty which imported specialist optics and lasers from the ex-Soviet Union into Australia, and a year later he started a similar company, LMC France Instruments in Paris, serving the EU market.