His research has been in the diverse areas of materials science, nanotechnology, ion-solid interactions, semiconductor processing and high pressure research for nearly 50 years. He has published over 500 refereed papers and five books within these fields, with over 12,000 citations and a H index of 59. He is best known internationally for his pioneering work on ion implantation into semiconductors, solid phase epitaxial growth, development of ion beam analysis methods, impurity gettering and nanoindentation of semiconductors, the latter area leading to prospects for novel patterning of silicon at room temperature. He has served on the editorial board of ten international journals and three international conference series. He was awarded the Boas Medal of the Australian Institute of Physics (1993) and the Thomas Rankin Lyle Medal of the Australian Academy of Science (2011).