Professor Iain Baikie

Professor Iain Baikie
Applied Physics and Electronics (1983)
Director of KP Technology

Scientist, inventor and educationalist, Professor Iain Baikie runs an award-winning global business based in his hometown of Wick in the north of Scotland. Winner of prestigious Queen's Awards for Innovation and International Trade, his clients include CERN, the European Space Agency and NASA, but Professor Baikie's stellar career was launched at Heriot-Watt University.

“I owe Heriot-Watt a lot,” he says, “it provided the launch pad for my PhD research at Twente University in the Netherlands and a Post Doc at Brown University, Rhode Island, both in terms of ability and confidence.”  

Among other hardware and services, KP Technology Ltd – the company Professor Baikie set up with his wife Elena - makes a measurement device called the Kelvin Probe that is used by researchers and manufacturers in the analysis of electrical properties on the surface of materials.

“The main thrust of my company is equipment development, materials analysis coupled with production and sales activities, he explains. “I have over 35 years of experience in the surface physics techniques we build - including Kelvin probes and Ambient Pressure Photoemission Spectroscopy systems. The materials we investigate can be very varied: metals, alloys, semiconductors and devices such as solar cells. The new organic semiconductor devices are multi-layered structures and our aim is to characterise the energy band diagram and layers' reaction to chopped light, which can help identify defect or trapping states.”

The company is both innovative - Professor Baikie won the IOP Swan Gold medal in 2015 for his contribution to improving Kelvin probe technology – and diverse: currently working on the potential forensics application of its scanning probes in the search for fingerprints.

His First Class Honours in Applied Physics and Electronics at Heriot-Watt in 1983 laid the foundation for commercial success, as Professor Baikie explains: “Firstly the course was designed to be applied, practical and ‘do-able'. Students were given opportunities to succeed. The characters teaching the physics course had practical and industrial experience. Labs were interesting, staff were approachable and highly motivational.

“The range of subjects was useful for students starting their own businesses. I covered vacuum physics, electronics, semiconductors, quantum theory, thermodynamics and, of course, mathematics. I use all of these subjects today. I also learned computing science and use the computing language I learned at Heriot-Watt daily.”

Professor Baikie – who has a daughter at school and two sons studying physics and maths at St Andrews and Cambridge Universities, has advice for new students: “I believe that students should take their study seriously, i.e. be professional students. However, there should be a work/life balance: students should work conscientiously but also enjoy their time off.”

He does have reservations, however, about the contemporary student experience: “I'm concerned that some students have to work during term time to pay for their study: I would rather have them contributing to the university community or their own development for those few important years. Ideally students should gain work experience during the summer.  Placements, particularly overseas ones can be very exciting, allowing you to learn a different culture, language and how a different place of work operates.”

With an Ivy League education and global career options, Professor Baikie chose to base his thriving business in the picturesque harbour town of Wick where he was born and brought up. But, rather than feeling remote, in the year 2000 he initiated the successful, long-running ‘Caithness International Science Festival' to bring eminent scientists and educators - including Space Shuttle Pilot, Duane Carey and Microsoft vice-president, Bob McDowell - to Caithness. All eighteen local primary and secondary schools now attend the annual week-long Festival to take part in over 7000 educational slots and a family fun day attracting 800 visitors.

“My motivation to start the Festival,” he says “was to continue to help with the education of young people, which was always the part of my job I liked the best.” Little wonder then, that in 2017, Heriot-Watt alumnus, Professor Baikie was awarded a richly deserved MBE for services to science education in Caithness.  

2 March 2017