In 1978, Lockwood moved to Canada to work at the National Research Council, where his continued work on magnetic materials led to the publication of what would become a seminal book in the field, Light Scattering in Magnetic Solids, co-written with Michael Cottam. He turned his attention to the optical properties of superlattices, semiconductor heterostructures, and nanostructures, publishing some 600 papers and 39 books, as well as registering six US patents. Lockwood has edited numerous scientific volumes, notably the Nanostructure Science and Technology series, and served on the editorial boards of several journals, such as Low Temperature Physics, Physica E, and Physics in Canada. He has organised international conferences and served on over 50 committees, including within NATO and IUPAP. In 2016, Lockwood retired from the NRC. In July 2016, he was invested with the title of NRC Researcher Emeritus.
Honours
Lockwood has garnered significant recognition for his work, including the Canadian Association of Physicists' Brockhouse Medal and the Royal Society of Canada's Tory Medal, each awarded in 2005. In 2010 the Electrochemical Society granted him the Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2011 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian Semiconductor Science and Technology Conference "in recognition of over 40 years of outstanding contributions to the generation and dissemination of knowledge related to materials science as revealed by optical spectroscopy". A symposium in honour of David Lockwood was held at the 2012 Pacific Rim Meeting on Electrochemical and Solid State Science. In February 2013, Lockwood was granted the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, which recognised significant achievements by Canadians in honour of the Queen's Jubilee. Also in 2013, Lockwood was awarded the CAP Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Physics, the highest honour that a Canadian physicist can receive. In February 2015, Lockwood was made a Fellow of the Institute of Physics of the UK. Lockwood was the 2019 recipient of the Gordon E. Moore Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Science and Technology. Lockwood was recognised for outstanding original contributions to the elucidation of the role of quantum-confinement effects in the optical and electrochemical properties of semiconductor nanostructures with applications in optoelectronics and photonics.